The Flow

There’s something to be said for mindfulness, I’m sure.

Of course, I say I am sure, but I am about as sure as an arachnophobe averting their eyes from someone’s prized pet tarantula and saying, “I’m sure it’s a lovely, friendly pet. You must really enjoy its company.”

That is overstating things. I’m being quite unfair to mindfulness. I can enjoy a good guided meditation or mindfulness exercise. Once in a while. On the right day. With optimal wind conditions.

But the truth is, I have more than my fill of myself on any given day and I am full weary of the awareness of me. Aware of my projects, aware of my emotions, aware of the way my body feels on me, aware of my tiredness, aware of the day slipping by, aware of the way a meal affects my emotional state, aware of my friends and family, aware of expectations, obligations, and commitments, aware of how many times I use the word “I”, aware of the vacant holes where I removed people from my life or was removed by them, aware of my shortcomings, aware of my inability to get myself to do things I want to do with any regularity. Sometimes I become aware of how aware I am of things and how this awareness is creating anxiety and that I should stop, but I can’t stop and then I have entered a loop of Self-Aware-Hell. On top of this I’m aware of the social zeitgeist, of the current great atrocities and controversies, and localized drama of family, friends, and neighbors. And if, in all this, I forget that I have emotional and physical limitations, I am made forcefully aware of those limitations as I crash and burn at the end of my energy for the day, long before the day is over.

Energy rationing has taken the place of bulling my way through. More and more, I seek those periods of time when all is at rest within me. When I’m not worrying about things like, “What if anxiety treatments change my personality and I become someone completely different in a terrible way?” When I push aside all the blinking lights in my brain that warn me about pending projects and sit down and exist for ninety minutes straight, sometimes with a nap. Sometimes with a book. And, best of all, I seek The Flow.

The Flow is a place of bliss. It’s a stretch of minutes to hours where there’s no questioning anything because I’m so clearly doing what I was created to do and time isn’t a factor in the equation. It’s working through a new wire tree design that I’ve never tried before. It’s filling in a few more patches on an embroidery design. It’s spinning out sentence after sentence in the next chapter of my fanfiction when the characters are cooperating and telling me everything I need to hear. It’s a new novel that I didn’t expect to captivate me like this and I literally cannot put it down. It’s dancing with my husband to the music of a live band like two dorks who can barely stay on beat. It’s driving with the radio cranked as the perfect song comes on and I belt the well-worn words at the top of my lungs, proper pitch be damned.

The Flow is a state of being wonderfully unaware because I’m caught up in something great and glorious beyond myself.

The Flow is also woefully elusive. I may create a new wire tree and then throw it away, miserable because I’m aware of how wretched it is compared to the concept in my head. I may sit down to write and take a stab at penning a few sentences, then shut the laptop. It turns out that unless The Flow is already there waiting on me, writing makes me keenly aware of myself and my inadequacies. The right song may not come on the radio that day. The book I’m holding may disappoint in only a few paragraphs. Design a new embroidery piece? Are you kidding? What fool would do that and expose what an amateur they are? How horribly aware of myself would that make me?

It is better than it used to be. I am more at home in my skin than I ever was. Still, there is something to be said for Jordan Peterson’s definition of a neurotic person, which is a person who is more prone to negative emotion. I’m not sure that negative emotion will ever be far from me in this life, and in that case distraction from the confines of my skull seems to be a reasonable coping strategy. Especially if I can turn that distraction into something productive, beautiful, or meaningful.

I am sitting in my favorite local coffee shop. I came here to work on my fanfiction, but The Flow was not there. I thought about going home and giving up, but that didn’t feel right. I wished I’d brought my journal, or maybe an adult coloring book, to get the juices going. Recalling that I was about to receive my own website and blog soon, I switched tracks, and found The Flow was just waiting for me in a different place today. It was waiting with a blog entry.

So I wrote this piece, and I wasn’t even aware of my fingers on the keys as I laid in word after word. And once again, I got the sense of rightness. The feeling that everything in my life was worth it just to be in this moment.