tweet like no one's reading
I feel more patient than usual right now. Of course there's been endless pandemic think pieces dedicated to how niceeeee it is to just slow downnnnnn and be upstateeeeee with loved ones and make sourdough but really, I do not miss the cult of busy-ness that is a normal part of life. As facets of it return with things slowly opening up - I find myself experiencing levels of patience that I embarrassingly can't remember having before. Last week I had some errands to run- I drove to a framer a few suburbs over with some wedding pictures I've been wanting to frame. When I arrived, they told me (masked through their screen door) that they were only seeing people with pre-scheduled appointments. They said they could make an appointment for me if I'd like and that the next available was ten days away. Pre-pandemic me would've thought "What? This is nuts. I'm already here, I've already paid for parking. This won't long, can't they just take these pictures off my hands?!" but instead I said "That sounds great- yes that day works." After having things completely shut down for a few months, there's a sense of "I'm just happy to be here"- but about the outside world. I was glad to have an appointment for the framers which gave me another reason to leave the house ten days from now.
Each trip outside the house has a purpose- but once I'm out, I'm happy for that purposefulness to slip away. I don't get frustrated by bad drivers, when my dry cleaner asked when I needed some alterations back, I said "no rush!" and when I'm waiting for a coffee, I just kinda stand there smiling (whoa, creep)- I didn't even go on my phone! Because, I missed this! I missed all these small, mundane parts of everyday life. And I feel genuine gratitude for the people working and realize how "off" it seems to be impatient with essential workers, or anyone, during these times. It always seems shit, but now especially it's like "oh where the fuck are you off to in such a hurry?" There's no rush right now, but there's never really a rush about most things is there? What, someone just absolutely needs this family photo framed immediately so they can put it up in their home and stare at it?
I've been walking and doing gentle yoga (yin yoga teachers really tell you to do like three stretches then head to your backs for shavasana huh) instead of HIIT workouts and hot pilates. And I have also done all the greatest-hits of lockdown activities like taking many hours to cook a tomato sauce. There's an intentionality to things I do rather than doing things just to get them done, so I can do more things. When I'm out and people are working, I feel empathetic as to what might be going on in their lives and how they are holding up in "this crazy year"- but it also makes me wonder what stops me from being like this normally. When the tragic news of Chadwick Boseman's passing came out, everyone was like "you really don't know what anyone's going through" but I hope we can normalize not needing to know what people are going through in order to be compassionate and patient with them. I'm going to try to remember that there's almost never a rush.
Another thing from this week was tapping into why Twitter feels so weird sometimes. I think it's because I have the feeling on there that all the people I follow, follow me back? I know deep down that's not true, but it's still hard not to feel like you're all just chatting to each other- Jenna Wortham and Kate Berlant and Ziwe and Emily Gould are talking to me (because they're the people whose tweets I see the most and am most engaged with or whatever) and I'm tweeting to them and we're all just having a convo about the day's events. I'll want to add my opinion to some meaningless discourse or express outrage that I'm sure they'll share. Then I remember no one cares. I'm not trying to be purposely self-deprecating here, really. It's just that usually the things I want to tweet are best left to the group chat, but sometimes it's still confusing to be *extremely online* and then realize you're tweets are like that tree falling in the forest metaphor. I am comfortable with my following right now which is: if I tweet something that a friend wants to respond to, they text me about it privately. Little to no engagement on the platform itself. Truly humbling.
p.s. THIS trailer looks incredible!!