March

I was driving home from the lab a few weeks ago, when a simple, straightforward thought that seemed to bind what I felt were dissperate parts of me came to mind. I’ll share it, and then I’ll unpack what it means to me:

“I look closely, and I try to understand.”

I’ve written about how I tend to be curious in many directions (e.g., child development, art history, geology, wood working, farming). This was a hard quality to have to accommodate once I realized that in order to find a regular job, the easiest thing for me would be to coalesce my interests around a particular profession.

Before I fell in love with science, I’d always imagined my life as some kind of artist. My high school self wanted to continue to develop the screenwriting skills I was teaching myself when I went to college. I didn’t just want to write, though. I wanted to direct, produce, and create movies about the human experience–though I’m not sure I would have been able to tell you that, then. I just knew I liked the kind of meditation I experienced when I went to a movie theater. It was a kind of laser focus on one thing, one story, and everything else was dark.

I wanted to give others the type of experience I had as a moviegoer.

But, for many reasons, I shifted away from that as my main path. Instead, I found myself wanting to be a clinician of some kind. And so, I became a speech-language pathologist. And, along the way, I fell-entirely unexpectedly-in love with science.

Despite finding a job I love, I think part of me always felt that I’d given up some other part of myself when I decided not to formally pursue being an artist. (Thank goodness for books like Elizabeth Gilbert’s Big Magic that help to remind us that we as humans are creative even if we don’t pursue a “formal” route for that creativity.)

But I’d always found it odd to approach myself as divided: one person who’s both a scientist and an artist. I was still, me. There had to be something that held these parts together, but I could never grasp what it was.

It wasn’t until I was driving in the car a few weeks back, when-out of the rush hour exhaust that filled the air-the thought that bound my two selves came to me:

“I look closely, and I try to understand.”

I repeated it out loud, stunned at how it simple it sounded but how profound it was to me.

What has been helping to bring me calm this month?

1. Slowing down by asking myself, “Am I dreaming?” I think this was a prompt from a guided meditation or from a book I’m reading, but I absolutely love stopping and asking myself this. There is so much I do on autopilot. And I’m grateful to my mind that I have the ability to make some of my processing less effortful, more automatic. But in doing so, I so often miss beautiful details that I want to experience and thoughts I that I want to sit with longer. And so, I try, every so often, to ask myself, “Am I dreaming?”
2. Paying attention to sunrise and sunset. I’ve started sharing pictures from my journaling window each morning at sunrise. I’ve grown amazed at how different it can look, day after day. I like being attentive to the regular changes of the day. I also like trying to focus my work into those daylight hours, leaving darkness for rest.
3. Using daily walks outside as a way to regulate. Nature undoubtably provides myriad benefits. But I’ve been trying to tune into what specifically I feel when I spend time alone, walking outside. And self-regulation is a big one. I’ve started to realize when my mind might be over-working, spinning its wheels, overwhelmed, etc. And having a walk of some sorts built into my routine really helps me be able to come back to my work calmer and more centered.