Found silences.
Surrendering to rest.
This is the last journal of the year, and I’ll be taking two weeks of holiday (I’m very excited). Jeremy’s Journal will be back on the 13th of January!
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I do stuff all the time. Eloquently put, don’t you think? I might as well end the journal here. I mean to say that as I have watched myself this week (a habit which I would like to believe I have only developed in the interest of being a good writer, but which I fear preexists the inclination) I have found an excess of stimulation. I move from focus to focus, noise to noise; I am perennially tethered to a new task, a message to be sent, a plan to be thought out, a chore to be done, another chapter, another album, another episode, another, another, another. In the elevator I tie my shoes while I listen to music and fiddle with my online banking app which reminds me of the one way train ticket I booked which reminds me of the return ticket I still need to book when I’m interrupted by a change in song, this is Gran’s favourite song, how is Gran?
My life isn’t noisy all the time, but it is noisy nearly all the time. On Thursday, when I sat on the bus that brings me to my German class, all I could manage to do was stare out the window. I haven’t a clue why I stopped. I didn’t reply to texts, I didn’t worry whether I’d done my homework or turned the dryer on. I just sat and watched. Maybe I was tired or maybe I was spurred on by the jazz playlist I had running in the background. For a moment, though, my thoughts fell quiet and I just watched the world go by. It all seemed so quiet and small. The people and the cars and the cigarette butts on the sidewalk and the grandeur of Berlin fell away. All I saw were the raindrops on the window and the blur of life beyond them. In the business and busyness of life, I was welcomed into a wonderful, quiet moment.
There’s a big, semicircular window centred in one wall of my room. It faces the street and when I lie in bed and look at the ceiling, it is lit with the soft, flickering, pale blue light of street lamps and passing cars. The occasional siren sends dancing reds across the roof and walls. When I lie down to fall asleep, once I’ve removed my earphones from my ears and left my phone on my desk, once I’ve exhaled the white noise of tension that builds up throughout the day, I watch the light show. Some nights the moving colours echo my uneasy thoughts. On others, they continue to glimmer without me, as I lose the battle against exhaustion.
Every morning I rise before the sun does. Part of my job au pairing three children is preparing breakfast, so I’m up before anyone else is; walking barefoot through the house in the silent, comforting darkness of the early morning. When I step into the kitchen, I am met with a window identical to that in my room. Though I am the only one awake in my home, the street is already full of movement. In the early morning I find that the stoplights and traffic feel more akin to twinkling stars.
I sit in the kitchen in my girlfriend’s childhood home. Family from all over the country lay, sleeping, in their rooms. I am awake. The room is lit only by the stovetop light and that of my laptop screen. The methodical hum of the dishwasher only just drowns out the sound of intermittent rain coming from the ajar window. This is the quietest the kitchen will be all week—tomorrow we will fill it with the symphony of Christmas preparation, there will be no shortage of scraping cutlery and excited chattering. My mind churns and whirs, but the room remains silent. The stillness begets stillness and my tangled thoughts begin to settle.
I suppose I’m proud of how much I believe I can handle. I think I want people to say or think that I can do a lot, accomplish a lot. I want to work hard. I want to be accountable. I want to get everything right. I think I want to be the guy that never forgets a birthday, that always calls to find out how you are, but never tires of work, never has an iffy day, never succumbs to sickness or mental fatigue. Every day my emotional and psychological plate is full, as full as I can bear. When I am not at work, I am thinking of it, preparing for it, digesting my experiences. The same is true of my relationships and my new language course. I am constantly planning my German sentences before I say them, trying to juggle every grammar rule I can remember and trying to remember the ones I forget. My schedule may suggest that I have unstructured hours, but my mind works overtime.
The truth is, I can only do so much. If I choose to plan or process or focus all day, it comes at a cost. Exhaustion, maybe. I think in my pursuit of being the man who can handle anything and everything, I’ve become more emotionally and mentally worn out than I care to admit. I need rest. When I began looking for them, I started finding these little moments of silence in my routine. I’m tempted to say that I made them happen, but I sort of believe that they are found, but well hidden—only visible when looked for. I am tempted, too, to suggest that they fill me with peace. I don’t think that silence inherently breeds peace, but I think it helps me to cultivate rest. The kitchen in my girlfriend’s house has as much magic as I give it.
I’m lucky enough to have two weeks of holiday, surrounded by family and business and noise. I’m looking very forward to all the Christmas feasts that lay ahead of me. I endeavour to find rest in the seasonal turbulence. In kitchens or car rides, I intend to allow my mind to wander, to stop the planning and the worrying, to let go of the expectations I’ve built for myself. I want to do it all, but maybe that should include rest, and maybe reflecting on everything I have been able to do. This year, if you’ve been reading along, has been quite the journey.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! If you enjoyed this journal, please share it with someone you love.