Monday morning I woke up bored
. Bored of running every day, bored of my silly little jogs. Bored of the snow-packed trail in the boring arroyo, and of winter, suddenly so tedious. Only the day before, my friend Erin and were riding the chairlift on a powdery Sunday, thrilling about how glorious winter has been, and then jinx! It must have been the way the watery winter light dripped in through the window that just felt dull, been-there, done-that. Over it.
I’m bored and I want to do something weird, I texted my friend Natalie. Wanna hang out?
Nat and I have been friends for 13 years. We go on walks together, drink hot chocolate elixirs together; she makes me eggs in her kitchen after I go running; we meditate on the side of a mountain together and write together. Sometimes we go out for Spanish tapas downtown and pretend we’re in Barcelona. We laugh a lot together. Hanging out with Natalie is never boring.
But Nat was busy. She’d started writing a new book, and wanted to keep at it—“metal to the pedal,” as she put it. This I understood. I was suffering from the opposite malady: I’d been writing constantly and needed a break. It goes both ways.
I moped around while the girls got ready for school. I would my end my silly little running streak, I decided. Running everyday was boring! Who but a true obsessive needed do that? The light was brightening just a bit. Probably I was just tired from so much skiing, so much running. Maybe running jogging everyday for ten weeks had taught me what I needed to know and it was time to stop.
Or maybe I just needed to do something different.
“Boredom is only a reflection on you,” my mother would tell my sister and me when we were young. “Just get busy and do something,” If we were bored, we weren’t being creative, or productive, enough. My mother was constantly busy—hanging sheets on the clotheslines, tapping away at her adding machine doing people’s taxes, baking a spice cake—hence she was never bored. My dad, too, was always on the move, taking pictures, finding new things to be amazed by. You could never be bored when the whole world was material. My parents’ approach worked: the best cure for the long, shapeless days of a suburban childhood was my own imagination.
Boredom was the beginning of writing.
I drove Pippa to school; well, she drove me. The sun was trying to peek out and I could feel my mood lifting. I had an idea. I knew what I wanted to do. I drove to the trailhead and parked. I started jogging up the mountain. I’d run up the mountain more or less every week for 25 years, but I hadn’t done it recently. The mountain was like an old friend, and going up it made me a better friend to myself. How had I forgotten that this is what I love, and need? That this is why I run: to go deeper into wildness and my own imagination.
There’s a chapter in Brief Flashings in the Phenomenal World called Boredom, about the summer of 2016, when I ran up the mountain every day for a month. I was writing Running Home, and I’d hit that dreaded lull when the initial thrill has worn off and you just have to put your head down and do the work. It wasn’t my book that bored me as much as it was the voices in my head when I sat down to write. Who will care? This story has been written so many times before, and better.
Instead of running from my boredom, I ran towards it. Up and down the mountain each morning and then back to my desk to write into the boredom. With each day, my body grew tight and tired, but my mind seemed to widen:
“Fatigue was inescapable. The consoling outlines of routine had devolved into monotony; could I find the place where boredom blossomed into ritual, mindlessness into awareness? Could I find inspiration in repetition? I knew I wouldn’t find the answer in my head, but on the mountain and in the forest and in the way I moved my body on the mountain.”
My streak ended, like all streaks must. I didn’t know it then, but it would be a long time before I ran up the mountain again. The lessons of that month stayed with me through my accidental hiatus: Boredom is a catalyst for change, a signal to shift and try something different. It doesn’t have to be new or all that weird; it can be as simple as going back to something old, beloved, original.
After I finished writing that chapter, I worried it might become self-fulfilling prophesy—that naming something (er, like this newsletter) “Boredom” would make it boring. Boredom’s not exactly the sexiest sell.
But even if' you do the most exciting thing, like sky diving, all the time, it’s bound to get boring. Boredom isn’t the problem; resisting it is. It isn’t an obstacle to flow; it’s a main ingredient.
On my way up the mountain on Monday, I felt my mid-winter torpor dissolve in the wind. Everything felt fresh again. I sat on top and marveled at the view, mauled by my dogs’ happy kisses. No more jogging in arroyos and around my neighborhood! I wanted to run up the mountain everyday! I did an imaginary fist-pump in my mind: Yes! Then I remembered: You don’t have to blow up your life running from boredom. Embrace it, use it, and you’ll never be bored again.
Speaking of trying new things, next week I’ll be launching a paid subscription offering for those of you who’d like more content on process—mine and others’—each week. This additional post will expand on the free Friday post, with links to what I’m reading, listening to, and practicing. Inspiration is everywhere if we’re paying attention. Look for these shorter posts in your inbox on Tuesdays.
Thanks as always for reading, sharing and subscribing!
Don’t forget to pre-order Brief Flashings in the Phenomenal World, which comes out April 16, and if you’re bored on your next run, listen to this illuminating interview on Ten Junk Miles.
OPPORTUNITIES FOR PRACTICE: Sign up for my upcoming 2024 Flow Camps!
• River Flow Camp for Women: May 30-June 2 at Field Trip NM on the Pecos River
• Mountain Flow Camp for Women: Sept 5-8 at High Camp Hut, Colorado
• Desert Flow Camp, Co-ed, October 2024, Marfa and Big Bend, TX. Date and details TBA & registration opening soon!
wishing you boredom & flow,
katie x