Closing My Eyes

by | Apr 5, 2025 | Michigan | 1 comment

wetpoem:

i don’t think i’m allowed to say i want stillness and then scrape the internet against my eyeballs all day long

amygdalae, Dropping My Laptop Into the Cool Blue Ocean Because It Has My Online Classes On It, 2021.

Cat looking up at the sky with chalk on the ground. Text reads "could I be doing all of this better?"

catcrumb

I spent twenty-eight hours of my spring break on a mostly silent spiritual retreat at The Hermitage in Three Rivers. It stood in stark contrast to the rest of my spring break, where I lethargically wasted away on my couch, bouncing between tapping on mobile games and watching The White Lotus. Scraping my eyeballs against the internet, stillness, and then back to scraping.

One of the practices we did on the retreat (besides silence, which again proved enormously useful to me—shocker!) was check in with our soul. We were encouraged to look at five aspects of ourselves: physical, spiritual, relational, emotional, and vocational. When I went off and did my own assessment, I asked myself: am I happy?

Things are stable these days, relatively speaking. I’ve been working online for five years, and while things constantly change, I have a handle on the rhythms of the year as a teacher. I’m financially independent. I have solid groups of friends in different places. For the soul check-in, I felt good to middle-of-the-road in most aspects. I have a multitude of things to improve on, yes, but I feel further from the general shakiness that comes with being in your twenties. But I still feel like I’m doing things wrong.

I wrote down that I felt satisfied, yes, but I couldn’t claim happiness. But I also couldn’t see a clear path forward towards happiness, nor could I pinpoint if happiness truly was what I wanted.

Could I be doing all of this better?

Over spring break, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I wasn’t resting the right way. Sure, I was getting sleep; sure, I was not opening my work laptop; sure, I somehow watched the TV show my father was also watching and we got to have a deeper discussion than I expected about its characters and cinematography. But when Monday comes, would I be ready to dive into the busiest time of year? A week later, I’m still not sure.

I’m halfway through a video essay “Is Rest Really Resistance?” recommended by F.D Signifier, a YouTuber I cannot praise highly enough. While there is much for me to chew on, I’m taken with how Victory themselves notes that the societal reasons why it feels so impossible to rest are exactly why resting is resistance and that rest can still happen within so much busyness, citing Tricia Hersey, the founder of the rest as resistance framework, and their own life as examples.

What I’m asking myself is what actions are actually rest for me these days and what are just a means to while away the time. What are the rhythms that will lead me into more fulfilling rest, into more fulfilling work? How am I creating and protecting the stillness that I say I want—the stillness that does nurture me when I allow myself to find it? Can I find a better version of myself in that silence?

The comic titled "To the Substitute Art Teacher" by Jordan Bolton. Three panels of a tan grocery bag with the text "You were young and optimistic, and you were pointing to a photo of a shopping bag telling us to notice the texture and colours"

Four panels. It shows the grocery bag and a teacher pointing to the bag in front of rows of students in desks. Text reads "saying 'Isn't that beautiful?' But we were a bunch of 13 year-olds and all we could do was laugh because all we saw was a shopping bag"

Four panels. First a butterfly, second a sunset, third a couple on the Hollywood red carpet, fourth red flowers blooming. Text reads "something that was not on the list of things that were allowed to be described as 'beautiful,' not that any of us would use a word like 'beautiful' anyway."

Four panel. Two people waiting at a bus stop: one sitting, one standing holding a grocery bag like the one pictured earlier. Text reads "Some years later, I was waiting at a bus stop and, in my boredom, found myself looking at the shopping bag"

Four panels, slowly zooming in on the grocery bag. Text reads "of the other person waiting and I noticed the texture of the bag, the pattern of the string made by the weight of what it held."Four panels. Two continue to zoom in on the grocery bag; the last two go back to the teacher in the classroom pointing at a grocery bag. Text reads "and the colour combinations of the items inside, and I remembered you in the classroom, saying, 'isn't that beautiful?'"Four panels, all zoomed-in snapshots of the grocery bag, showing different items in purple, yellow, tan, orange, red, light blue, and green. Text reads "And I realised that this is what you must have been trying to teach us, that images of beauty are all around us, if you pay close attention."Four panels. First shows a person waiting in a laundromat; second a person standing at a bus stop; third a line of four people waiting at the grocery store; fourth a different person at another bus stop. Text reads "And since then, whenever I'm waiting, I try to look out for these bits of beauty and some days, when I'm not distracted, it seems, everywhere I look, I can't help thinking"Four panels. The first is multicolored cloths in a laundry machine; the second broken glass on the floor; the third a fan blowing air; the fourth a tree's shadow on a red brick building. Text reads "That's beautiful. That's beautiful. That's beautiful. That's beautiful."Jordan Bolton, To the Substitute Art Teacher

1 Comment

  1. Heather Stroobosscher
    Heather Stroobosscher on April 6, 2025 at 7:22 pm

    Thanks for sharing Alex. Sounds like you’re climbing trees.

    Reply

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