I went most of the week without seeing another person except for baristas. Baristas are people, of course, but I stand six to ten feet away in an empty coffee shop and chat for as long as it takes them to make my decaf mocha.
I miss people.
When I was in college, I took the Myers-Briggs test and I landed in the middle equally between being an introvert and an extrovert. I am either an introverted extrovert or an extroverted introvert. I mentioned this in a meeting last night and I one of the woman in the group laughed in recognition. I am content doing solitary activities like reading, writing my blog, painting my office, quilting, biking, hiking, etc. I enjoy my own company, to a point, and then I need to be around people before I start going batshit* crazy.
I was talking to the Boy the other day. His life in boarding school in Montana has been minimally impacted. As his school is a residential treatment center, it is considered an essential service, like a nursing home. The only change in the school's routine has been washing hands more often and weekend passes. Instead of going into town, the kids are allowed to go fly fishing.
Fly fishing. In Montana. Poor baby.
(See: The River Runs Though It by Norman Maclean which takes place in Montana. First line: "In our family, there was no clear line between religion and fly fishing.")
The Boy said he is sorry he is missing the stay-at-home order, practiced by most countries in the world except North Dakota. (Montana has some of the most rigorous social distancing rules.) Twenty years from now when people talk about the pandemic, the Boy will have to tell people he was in boarding school and nothing was really different.
"I'd be good at the stay-at-home order," he said.
Yeah.
The Boy was great at social distancing, which is how he ended up in boarding school. It isn't natural or normal to spend six months laying in bed looking at a smart phone and watching Netflix, and then sneaking out in the middle of the night to ride a bike or skateboard all over town. I had my son committed to a mental health facility for the very thing everyone in the world is doing now. Ironically, he's out of the house and the rest of the world is locked inside.
Perhaps the Boy would be an ideal candidate to go on a mission to Mars, along with my friend Anderson, who also suffers from anxiety and depression. Both are wicked smart and could figure out all of the technical challenges of running a spaceship, yet at the same time would be well suited to sit and stream Breaking Bad six times in a row. The art of television and film would feed them as they blasted through space. The Boy might also need a virtual ski machine, which would be cool. Anderson could play virtual cricket.
Which brings me to boredom. Boredom--its a good thing if played right. The most legendary act of boredom was J.K. Rowling's train ride which led her to create Harry Potter. How many insights can we find when we have nothing to do?
* Bat bites are one of the theories of how COVID-19 started, right? Appropriate, then, that I am going batshit crazy.
This blog is about the little and big thoughts that pop into my head. I once read that when Flannery O'Connor walked into a bookstore, she would want to edit her published works with a red pen. In the digital world, we have the luxury of tweaking things up after we've hit the publish button. I can be a perfectionist/procrastinator, where waiting for the ideal means little gets done. Here I will share what is not--and likely will never be--perfect.
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