This year I’ve been taking a monthly yoga teaching class in pursuit of certification. After I complete my training this weekend, I will be 8/9s of the way through. Up till now, it’s been show up, do yoga, go home (more or less). But now in our penultimate month, assignments are due. One of those assignments was to take a day of silence and then write about it. Last Friday I gave it my best shot. I’m hoping they’ve got a sense of humor and a forgiving heart.

OBSERVATIONS ON MY DAY OF SILENCE

first attempt: failure. 

going to need to plan this better. make a list of cans and cannots. plan a day where i know i will be both busy and also have nothing else to do.

on wednesday i plan for friday. the kids will be in school. good. less talking. friday night we will to a lookouts game. good. less thinking.

on thursday i get mad at everyone on social media. good. i’ll ignore them all day friday and won’t even miss facebook or any of it.

friday i wake up and instead of doing all my usual new york times word games, i do only wordle because i cannot break my streak – 162 days. i also cannot break my duolingo streak – 864. but i can get out of the bathroom 15 minutes earlier than usual by forgoing spelling bee, strands, the mini crossword, and connections. that’s nice. 

i also do not check facebook. 

i feel better already.

i wake up my son for school and then go to unload the dishwasher and that’s when i grow angry. today i must do this chore without the distraction of a podcast. a mindless morning necessity has become a brain-consuming bore. with a podcast i am merely moving my arms and legs between dishwasher and cabinet but without a podcast i become a slave to mundane, life-sucking rituals. 

next are the catboxes and by this point i am seething. how dare i be forced to suffer this mindfulness. i do not need to be here in THIS moment. 

i have already decided that going a day without speaking is unreasonable and i won’t be partaking. this day is about cans and cannots. i can allow the outside world to spin away without me. i cannot punish my family by forcing them to play charades all day.

i want to stay off screens as much as possible, but i have a due date for a writing project today. i am proud of myself for taking the word doc out of the tab bar and placing it into its own window so that i do not get distracted by my three email accounts or any of the other 16 tabs i currently have open on my laptop. i complete my project and submit it. i cannot be late on my assignment. i can focus on and complete my task, then close my laptop and walk away.

at lunch i read salem’s lot and am filled with dread and disquiet. normally i’d wash these feelings away with an episode of seinfeld, but not today. 

not today. 

i wonder how many notifications i am missing. has anyone tagged me in anything? has anyone texted me? i wonder about this many times throughout the day.

it feels good to not know, but it sucks to still care.