My Stubborn One-track Mind is Keeping Me from Writing

Sometimes mindfulness can slow us down.

COVID-19, the election, Black Lives Matter. Life is throwing a lot at us right now, and it’s more than I can tolerate without getting jittery.

And now, winter is coming. I’m going to be looking at my four walls, alone. Well, alone as far as human beings are concerned, and those four walls have needed work for a while now.

A sliding closet door that has deserted the track and hangs back. Walls that need to be painted, an outdated bathroom with a blaring fan, dirty grout, gold fixtures, and a sink with a shoddily repaired crack.

This is how I bought the place, but replacing leaking windows, adding color to the walls, and refinishing the wooden floors came first. I’ve needed to work on this stuff for a while, but I haven’t had good luck with contractors, so I decided to live with things as they are.

But now that I won’t be in my office for the foreseeable future, yay!, I knew I couldn’t stand the dirt, the cracks, and the crud anymore. A relative recommended a contractor and now all I want is for everything to be perfect, or as good as it can be.

I can’t think of anything else. I tried to write, but anytime I put my fingers to the keyboard, I’d think of what I should be doing so that everything is the way I want it when the contractors are done.

And that means I need to paint. So, for the past two weeks, I’ve traded in my keyboard for a paintbrush.

Why can’t I write?

I can’t write because I lay in bed at night and envision paint peeling on the door, the knicks on the windowsills from the cats’ claws, the dirty radiators.

Thinking, thinking, thinking….it reminds me of Winnie the Pooh sitting, saying think, think, think, and still sitting in the same spot hours later with his hand on his head.

I was frozen.

I couldn’t turn off the thoughts, visions of dirt and decaying dust bunnies. Yes, they died long ago and have been left to rot in the baseboard radiators. How did the people that sold me this place live with this for 12 years?

I couldn’t write because I have a one-track mind and the track is now home improvement.

Hello Home Depot. Good-bye Medium.

Mindfulness vs. Multi-tasking

Mindfulness is a good thing.

It allows you to concentrate on the here and now fully. To be in the moment and settle your mind in one place and give your full attention to whoever you’re with or whatever you’re doing.

You don’t stop until the task is completed. You don’t make time for other things besides the very basics of personal care. Showering, eating, and cat care are the only other things I’ve had time for. Yes, I respond to texts and e-mails, but only when I take a bathroom break. Yup, you can’t ignore that.

Multi-tasking is what I heard one of my yogi friends refer to as “continuous partial attention.” You can’t concentrate on one thing long enough to complete it. You’re interrupted, pulled out of the zone, and it takes a while to get back into it.

So in other words, there’s no such thing as multitasking because you can only concentrate on one thing at a time. It means you’re going everywhere and getting nowhere. There’s nothing you can check off your list because everything is only partially done.

It’s progress, but it’s incomplete progress.

Make sense, partial attention, partial completion.

Your Mind Knows Best

Our brains can’t take being overstimulated; overstimulation equals anxiety. And there’s a lot of it with the demands, restrictions, and lack of physical contact.

It’s like overloading a circuit; your mind will sputter and burn out if you don’t reduce, give it a break and unplug.

We have big events unfolding and sometimes exploding around us. And on top of that, we have life’s other stresses. We have kids, their school, our jobs, and there’s that thing called food, so we have to go shopping, and do it masked and quickly.

There are a lot of negatives.

It’s okay to take a break and focus on one thing. Until it’s done, it will then be out of your mind.

It will be unplugged and ready for storage.

Here I Am

I finally have gotten to a point where I’m satisfied. I look at the painted doors, windowsills, and radiators and find their clean, fresh appearance calming.

I’ve gotten rid of many dead dust bunnies, though in a 100 plus year-old building there will always be some. But there are fewer. My thoughts are swirling around my head less and my breath is steady.

I can think of Medium and blogging again.

I fell asleep last night wondering what I should write about today. I can only write about my life experience, and right now it’s been the mindfulness of painting. Of watching that paint cover-up dirt and grime.

The drop cloth has been dropped in its last location and I’m happy with the progress. I can funnel my thoughts from my brain to my fingers again. I’ve returned.

Whatever that one thing is that’s been on your mind, do it. Don’t stop until you feel it’s done. Get it off your mind.

It will give your other thoughts, and you, some breathing room. And breathing deeply will calm your mind and organize your thoughts.

Try painting or something else that will give you a feeling of accomplishment. You can then get back to this hectic, overstimulating life.

It will be waiting for you.