Meditative peace without boredom

How to calm down. I’m not kidding.

Slow yoga makes me bored. I get literally like, “oh god I can’t be f***ing bothered to move this arm if we’re going to move it SO SLOWWWWLY.”

Also, my ex said I have a lot of fast-twitch muscle. I think that’s fair.

Feel like I have a lot of fast-twitch neurons up top. I am excitable. Distractible. I get bored. I have to be honest and I have to feel however I’m feeling, or everything feels fake and wrong.

My mum often reminds me that when I was a child and discombobulated (what we referred to as “being in a tiswas”) “cutting and pasting” calmed me down. I used to create collaged journals. Tidying my room also calmed me down. Writing.

I find, recently, sewing calms me down. It slows me down. You can’t pin a skirt into the right shape quickly. You will cock it up.

Sometimes I feel like my mind is running at a too-high speed and there’s no way to stop it. I jiggle my leg. I juggle my thoughts. I flit like a butterfly between the objects of my scanty and anxious attention.

A rare night in sends me into a spin of panic. What can I do to get out? Who can I text? Where can I scroll? Which screen will blank out my thoughts best just to give me a f***ing rest?

This post is kind of an antidote to my posts about finding friends and figuring fun. It’s about slowing down, emptying my mind, and a doing nothing that involves something, but not much. Alpha wave activities. Flow state. Chill vibes.

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I didn’t bring much with me to my room in London. I don’t like clutter and, although I’m used to art on the walls, I prefer to have some space on the walls so my eyes can rest and so that light is reflected there.

I did bring my bag of yarn and a sewing kit. After adjusting my daughter’s onesies and making her cardigans, booties, blankets, and hats, I have been slowly crocheting more and adjusting more clothes.

In my #fits post, which you may have read, I also talked about buying more from charity shops and shopping my own wardrobe, both of which require me to adjust items to fit me.

I’d much rather make these adjustments myself, as I enjoy the practice of it as much as the finished product and wearing something I know I have taken part in is a pleasing idea to me.

In a similar way, I enjoy crocheting freehand. I’d rather make a mistake, unravel, and remake an item, than strictly follow a pattern (which I can’t read) or a YouTube tutorial (I use these, but adjust to suit). I want to make something that comes from my mind and the pattern or shape design is as much a part of the calming activity as the crocheting or sewing.

I take all my activities like this very slowly. I don’t pressure myself to do them. Nor do I give myself deadlines. I pick them up when I feel like it and I let them linger unfinished when I don’t.

Crochet

After about 13 years crocheting, I’m quite proficient. Since moving in to my London flat, I have finished a top for my mum. It’s compiled of granny squares. We designed it together—finding something that fit what she wanted and what I can manage.

I also mended my great nan’s blanket the other day. There was a little hole, I fancied doing it, I did it, and it was a nice break in the day when I wasn’t thinking about anything except crocheting, solving the problem of the hole, and my grandad, who would have liked that I was keeping his mum’s blanket in a state of repair.

Painting

I bought some floating Japanese decorations from Broadway Market years ago, for my kids. They never went up. I’ve put them up here. Two of them were white octopi. On them I painted welcoming slogans in red.

I also had a large white lampshade, the kind that looks like a moon. I painted a phrase on it in red that felt inspiring in this season of my life. It was fun working out how I wanted the writing to look. I wrote, “MAD JOY”.

Designing my room

I’m not really moved by decorating. I do however enjoy designing my room. Placement, or collage, is probably the best way to think about it. I spent some time looking at different places to hang pictures. I arranged my books just so. I collected stickers to put on my new Ikea bedside cabinet in grey metal, and enjoyed figuring out the placement of the stickers and some magnets; juxtapositions and patterns. I also created a couple of stickers with phrases on them, using plain white stickers—the kind you buy for plant pots.

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