Since I was a small child, I spend much of my time living “in my head.” My first friends were imaginary, and my later companions became books. When I’m in a particular social environment, such as work or school, I fully inhabit one intimate friendship at a time. So no surprise, I’m not mentally distressed by having to stay in. I’ve had endless hours to read and daydream. The busy life of an Accidental Icon never moved over enough to let some time in for these my most favorite pastimes. Or when I seemed to find a moment, I interrupted it to do something else. Ironically, the Great Interrupter has provided me with countless hours to indulge in these activities.
I do very much miss my mother, daughter, granddaughter, and my sister and brother and that’s been the most challenging part of this quarantine. My first foray out will be to see them. When I imagine where I prefer to go after that, when I can move beyond my immediate neighborhood, I want to travel to a cool green wood by myself. I need to find wildflowers and ferns and have only a babbling brook to speak to. Unlike others, I have no desire to return to a bustling cafe or run to a party.
As with any other thing in life, problems emerge when there is no balance, even if the scales are tipping in favor of what you love. So now I’ve moved from not enough time to think and imagine to a state of too much luxuriating in the grey matter. I’ve overindulged. The danger of such indulgence is that you may end up getting bloated and clumsy as you do from eating lots of pints of your favorite ice cream. My head is now heavy to hold up from overthinking, obsessing, way too many ideas, and other intellectual junk food clogging the neurons in my brain. Intellectual constipation ensues. The heaviness makes me lie down on the couch. Passivity covers me like a quilt.
I’ve been working with my agent to edit my book proposal. Another draft is due after this holiday weekend. My edits are suffering from the sluggishness of my overfed brain. Insights trapped and can’t get out. The memories my body holds of lying on the psychoanalytic couch and the wisdom gained sounds the alarm. It is the idea to rise, and just free-associate that gets me standing up. Time to exercise the parts that atrophied from not being used. I retrieve some colored sticky notes. I take to work. From my cerebral chrysalis emerges a beginning, middle, and end. There is now a flock of sticky butterflies on my white wall. I think they are beautiful. I photograph them.
So today I share with you an exercise I plan on trying next. Maybe not relevant to the book I’m creating, more to keep my head lean and mean. But you never know in advance what will come. It can provide inspiration for the other writing I’m doing. The exercise is a call to readers from all over the world to draw maps of their life during the Great Interrupter. This clever prompt comes from CITYLAB, a site that invites us to re-imagine city life in ways that are sustainable, innovative, and just. Here’s a link to the exercise and what other people have done. I hope you enjoy it as much as I have.
As always, remain safe, stay well.
This is not an answer to your question but a thought that has been coming to me as I move through my days.
Calling this period the “Great Interrupter” brings to mind a stop. And yes, it did stop bits of your life from what they were, but not all.
Language, the words we use, defines our reality, it can affect our behaviors. As this period of time extends and you are moving on with your life, albeit in different ways, maybe it is time to re-label, if it needs a label at all.
I am calling it “the age of corona”. This may, or may not work for you. It is something that is in the background that I need to be aware of but not let it define me.
Love your musings, writing and style.
Be well…
I so enjoy the way you have chosen to share your world via the blog. I want to tell you that I am a 62 years young mother and grandmother of one. My life has been incredibly colorful in many ways, and I am happy to read your thought’s on the many things that make up your world. Like you, I would quite happy to find that pristine place to visit and re-connect to my spirit. I hope that we all will be able to do just that, in whatever form it should take. I wish you well, and hope that you will find that very special place to re-set your mind,body and soul. I wish you love, peace and much happiness!
Thank you so much. I wish the same to you.
Interestingly, I see interruption as a pause, not a stop. I’ve been interrupted in life many times before but it’s only been a pause as I get back to business usually with some revelation or inspiration that is the result of having to take a pause. So interesting because this does show how a word may have different meanings to us depending on experience.
Thank you so much for this one. I have been beating myself up because like you wrote. When this is over I will not be running out to party either. I have also enjoyed reading and a few other indoor projects and also commune with one friend at a time. Yay! Now I do not feel so bad. Just wanted to say thank you and stay safe and I love your blogs!!!
Hi Lynn, I too am getting a bit too cerebral but am finding a channel for it in some fabric I’ve been painting. For this I am grateful for the Great Interrupter (I like this term). One thing is for sure, when this is all over, my life is going to be different and I’m embracing the change. Thank you for your thoughts.
PS I love your butterflies.
I really love your vlog, thank you. Here in the UK we are still in lockdown to an extent and being 70 obviously means having to keep safe. Like you I really miss my family but am quite independent in myself. Your writing today really rang home to me my head is bursting with ideas but not much evidence of my completed tasks. Good to know I am not on my own. Keep safe and well Everyone.
Yes, I’m an artist, and I know my mind is my favorite playground. Will I rush out to be with people, no, but that’s never been the case for me. Getting called “ no fun” because I don’t choose to do the activities others want to do, has been a constant my whole life. I find masks and distancing, somewhat “ fun”, like being an actor who plays a part, of a shy person, observing from afar. Interesting times… thoughtful times…
Another great post, thank you! I have a saying, “Better living through sticky notes.”
I love your take on life! You are such a vivid writer. I even like your brain!
I can’t wait to read your book!
Beautiful writing, Lyn. And coincidentally, I just started mapping my life last week for a counselor.
I’ve always LOVED maps. When I travel I always have a map of the City I’m in. Like to check out locations on the map.
Fortunately where I live we have not been confined to staying in – we have had freedom to roam. We could go all around the city. Just stay your distance.
Exploring different neighbourhoods is always interesting.
Mapping is a fun activity. Great interpretations. Thanks for making us aware of it!
I am a Realtor in North Carolina and recuperating from gallbladder removal. My youngest daughter and her two sons and my husband and I decided to quarantine together once a month at our beach house in South Carolina. We all stay at least a week, sometimes 3 weeks but have this to look forward to. We can sit on our balcony at the beach and watch the crowded vacationers without mingling. We take turns cooking and not going out to eat. It’s a win win!!!
Sounds delightful.
Best take on the “shelter in Place” I have read
Thank you for this link! It’s fascinating to see what people portray!
A lifelong introvert, it feels like in many ways, I was born for this. My government and my employer have forced me to stay home and live like I’ve always lived by choice. But you’re right about overdosing on solitude, like ice cream.
For one of my sabbaticals, I was in residence for a winter in a zen monastery, working on a drawing project with a priest who was a poet and a painter. I could have easily become a monk, living in a community of fellow introverts. Even in silence, there is still plenty of communication and companionship.
I like your fluttering wall, your thoughts discharged and made visible. Psychology, being what it is, studied creativity and concluded that creation has five distinct stages. Creative people understand that they have always known this without categorizing and labeling. The five stages:
1. Define the problem.
2. Work on the problem, consciously exploring, seeking information, seeking possible solutions.
3. Incubation. Stop working. Go walk in the woods, drive in the car, take a shower. Do not think about the problem.
4. Illumination. The ahah moment. Most of us know that moment, but sometimes mistake it for where creativity begins. Maybe steps 1-3 happened last week, or five years ago, and you ‘forgot’.
5. Realization. Now you know. Make it, do it, write it, whatever your creative discipline involves.
Your post-it wall might hold ahah surprises. Perhaps you will fashion youself a beautiful post-it coat, or publish your book one word at a time, on post-its.
Thank you so much for this comment — there is a lot here that is useful.
Thank you for the sage advice and for sharing the process.
Amen, from another untroubled-by quarantine “head living creative.”
Hi,
I would prefer that you would share with us style ideas of how to put clothes together during the lock down.
I am not so interested in your articles.
I appreciate your request but that presenting style ideas is never what this blog has been about. If you want some style suggestions you can check out my Instagram @iconaccidental
I believe that the most useful style comment is when it appeals to all senses. Particularly what goes on in the mind. The body we clothe is a palet which the mind and inner world draw upon. I on the contrary love to hear what goen on in your mind.
Your analyst was very fortunate indeed.
Oh for goodness sake. The articles/musings are the entire -point- of this blog. Why criticize apples for not being oranges?
If you want style ideas, look at Lyn’s Instagram page — or at other blogs.
Loved the drawings from CITYLAB and your revelations. Thank you.
I am thoroughly enjoying the CITYLAB link and have forwarded to many. Thank you!
I always relate to your blog. We could be twins as think we are the same age, or our brains are anyway. Just a note to tell you how much I enjoy your writing. Don’t stop. Also enjoyed reading the link you included. That was a lot of fun. I don’t draw or I would have included my studio which includes weaving, rug hooking, needlepoint, couture sewing, I’m addicted to textiles of all sorts.
Maybe you’ll do a textile map!
Nice.
Thanks for sharing. Indeed very inspirational. Being an introvert I am not suffering so much not seeing people all the time, but some people I do miss. Writing projects are part of my days and that has not changed. Being outdoors in the woods and by the lakes in my neighborhood has not changed either. But taking the train to the city has stopped and the city has changed a lot. Some stores selling clothing and shoes have been closed for good. The city center will be a different and emptier place after the virus. The internet shopping has taken over
Perhaps different city sites where women can gather, perhaps to do more than buy.
I like hearing your thoughts and that you share things you are interested in. The maps that people made of their city are fun. Good luck writing the draft for your book. I think there’s a real thirst for books by women now and you have much wisdom to share.
Instagram brings eyes and income and I would never begrudge you that, but your increased engagement/writing here since early April is deeply exciting and (if I may be so presumptuous) is the core of your work. Please, keep going. Older women have so much still to say and do, and society does, as you once said, try to keep us in our lane. You’ve found some cracks in that, which is something I’m also trying to do, have been trying to do since I was young. So many women out there need to see more of that.
I’m glad you’re here, thinking, writing and sharing. I know that works-in-progress are fragile things; I have one of my own and always think carefully before I speak of it to others. But I, and probably more of your readers here, would love to know more about your book.
Thank you for this validation I feel deeply at home in this place and will indeed continue.
I wish I could “like” this comment. No need to say more! Agreed…..
Thanks for this. I feel like a baby swaddled in comforting solitude and long bouts of silence.
Thank you for this…and the other columns that you write. You inspire me, you fortify me.
Always love to read your blogs. Yes, it is a question of balance. As I like to be by myself, this is not a stretch, but I do feel, a little the need to visit just a little. When I notice my neighbor outside we sit spaced apart and visit. I wander around my garden and my neighborhood and enjoy seeing the daily changes. Finding nature and music to be great healers. Rather than the great interrupter perhaps call it the great paradigm shift? Seeing this as a chance to find better ways to live.
The CITYLAB maps are wonderful – I love the stories that they tell of one person’s physical and emotional journey through the pandemic. I think mine would be pretty small.
The quarantine has brought personal changes in my life, at first accustomed to the noise of the city I felt lost, confined in my house, as the days passed something happened in my mind, I began to question myself about my life and my activities, I began to I write every day, to take up projects that have been carried out, I thank the quarantine because I have had time for myself, to meet, to ask myself, to give me encouragement, to give me love. I loved your article.