When will you have a little pity for every soft thing
This week, as the pandemic continues and so many of us feel at least a bit battered and defeated, I thought that I’d write about rest.
About how it’s part of our daily needs and wants.
About how so many of us treat it like a reward that must be earned.
About how we fail to understand what rest even is anymore.
We push until we break or collapse, and then we begrudge ourselves the time spent in rest.
We struggle to be productive, even in “rest.” To do something, almost anything, rather than sit or lie quietly, observing the world around us.
“When will you have a little pity for every soft thing that walks through the world, yourself included?”
Rest is supposed to mean a period of relaxation or inactivity, or as Merriam Webster puts it, “freedom from activity or labor.” Rest is needed for our bodies and minds to repair themselves.
Rest isn’t limited to sleep, either. It can be time spent sitting quietly.
My maternal grandmother was a pro at taking breaks during which she would rest. Her house was located in a suburb of Philadelphia on a mostly quiet street full of houses with porches.
Her house had a front porch that gave an open view of the street beyond the enormous forsythia in the front yard. It had no railings, just a large azalea bush blocking part of it.
When my mother was young, and again in my adulthood during the last decade that my grandmother lived in the house, there was a porch swing. All that time, there was also a rocking chair, next to a side table holding pots of coleus and wax begonias that came out in summer and went inside in winter.
When it was nice enough out (which means warm enough or not pouring down rain), we would sit on the porch. Sometimes we talked, sometimes we just rocked or used the swing. Conversation might include observations about the nearby rock garden, or the neighbor’s cat being a naught boy.
Other times, we would sit together at the small kitchen table in her small kitchen. Often we had a cup of tea in an actual teacup and a cookie from the cookie jar (which was more likely to be an Oreo or Fig Newton or Milano than anything homebaked).
There was never a sense that we needed to be doing something else in that moment. Never a sense of hurry or rush. And having lived with her for a brief time, I know she took these breaks whether she had company or not.
Sitting down to rest, to take an actual break, to think or daydream was an entirely valid choice in her book, and I benefited from her example. In some ways, my grandmother embodied a Jane Austen quote that I discovered much later in life: “To sit in the shade on a fine day and look upon verdure is the most perfect refreshment.” It’s something I knew well when I visited her house.
And then I managed to forget.
I could blame technology, which makes it so simple for us to numb out and occupy ourselves, even if we accomplish nothing. Except that my “stay busy” practices began before cell phones (or at least before the kind that hold the internet).
It’s more likely that I internalized the messages passed down by generations of a patriarchal society. The ones that say that “idle hands are the devil’s workshop.” The ones that exhort us to be busy, to be productive members of society at all times as a matter of proving our worth.
Here’s the thing:
You do not have to prove your worth.
You don’t have to prove your worth. Not to those around you, and not to yourself.
You are inherently valuable, just as you are.
And in order to function well, you require adequate rest. You deserve rest. We all do.
You do not have to earn rest, or the right to rest. Anyone who tells you otherwise is trying to take advantage of you.
You do not benefit by “pushing through” if you are tired or feel unwell, but it’s possible that someone else benefits from you doing that (an employer, a coworker, a spouse, etc.). You do not benefit by forcing yourself to perform a bunch of tasks or labor in order to “deserve” the right to a break, to rest and relaxation.
Half the time we push ahead and keep going just because we worry that someone somewhere will think we are “lazy” if we don’t. We worry so much about the possibility that someone else might think or say something about it that we force ourselves to continue, rather than taking time to rest.
How fucked up is that?
This week, I’d love for you to take an actual rest break each day. It could look like a nap, or like ten minutes sitting quietly while you have an afternoon cup of tea or coffee, or half an hour spent sitting with your feet up (but not scrolling through your emails or social media). You can watch a TV show, but if you do, try to confine yourself to just watching the episode (and maybe having a snack or drink): don’t be playing computer games or writing to-do lists or working on a sudoku or anything else. Just allow yourself to sit and watch, uninterrupted.
As you take your rest break, I’d love for you to notice when and how your resistance to rest comes up—and I guarantee that it will. You will sit down to watch an episode of Queer Eye or The Witcher and find yourself reaching for your phone “just to check” Twitter or Facebook. Or you will think you should pull out knitting or some other hand work to do as you watch.
Or maybe you will sit down for that ten minute tea break and feel as if you should jump up to start a load of laundry, or take something out to defrost. You may find your mind wandering to a long list of things you “should” do. If that’s the case, just remind your brain that right now, you are resting.
Don’t beat yourself up over it when it happens. Just notice that it exists, and that it means you are estranged from the idea of rest.
Work on noticing, then resuming your rest. Keep providing yourself with rest breaks each day, and notice whether it gets easier to allow yourself to just sit and focus on one thing for a bit.
As the poet Mary Oliver wrote, “When will you have a little pity for every soft thing that walks through the world, yourself included?”
And hey! Don’t forget to sign up for the upcoming pay-what-you-can vision board workshop on February 4th from 7-8:30 pm. Here’s the link!
