Inhale, Exhale

I crave the stillness. 

One of the things I loved most about living in the UK was having to line dry my laundry. It sounds crazy, I know. 

When I first arrived at my home and realized that tumble dryers basically don’t exist in England, I confided in my roommate that I had never line-dried anything in my life and asked her to show me how. I wondered, is there a technique that I should know? Turns out, no. You just… do it.

Over time, and with practice, I began to deeply enjoy the slow moments of hanging my laundry and the intention behind selecting my outfits, knowing that anything I washed would take a day or two to dry. Conveniently, our washing machine was in the basement, beyond the reach of our Wi-Fi, so there was nothing I could use to fill the silence. I could only be present, using my hands instead of relying on the clothes drying technology that I had long taken for granted. 

I learned to look forward to Tuesdays, my chosen day for laundry and other chores, because it was the only day when all of my roommates were out of the house and I could just be quiet. I’d start the morning at Tesco, shopping for my weekly meals, before returning to the house on Algernon Road, where my meal prep was intermittently paused, simmering broth replaced with the sights and smells of detergent, limescale powder, and clothespins. Occasionally, I’d crack the back doors to the house open, letting the crisp autumn air waft in from the garden as I toggled back and forth between the main floor and the basement. 

When I returned to the US, I was actually afraid to use a tumble dryer again because I knew that it would signal a re-entry into the chaos and pace of this part of the world that I wasn’t sure I was ready for. I didn’t want to leave behind the peaceful Tuesdays, the commitment to slowness. And yet, one week turned into the next, and before long, I had slipped back into a pattern of instant gratification.

So now I meet you here, sometime in September by the time you are reading this, where the snowball effect has caught up with me, the dryer serving as a symbolic gateway between the world of quiet intention and endless noise – noise that distracts and conceals, but never heals. I find myself more desperate for quiet than I ever have been, and yet I struggle to pull myself away and let myself breathe in the white space. 

This past year, and particularly this summer, has required a lot of social courage from me. I’ve been in many rooms, virtual and actual, where I’ve had to be vulnerable with strangers. There have been moments where I’ve felt unsafe or uncomfortable, moments where I’ve felt pressure to perform, and moments where I’ve felt confused about my purpose in those spaces. There are pieces of my ambiverted self that have absolutely loved being in these new environments with new people, and there are pieces that have felt completely drained. 

Simultaneously, I’ve been in the throes of a long and exhausting job search, desperately wanting to dream big for myself while daily being confronted with a job market that isn’t looking for people like me. 

And, of course, all of this has occurred within the context of a world and nation whose deepest cracks are being exposed with more clarity every day. 

At any given moment, I feel overwhelmed by the number of tasks I have to complete, questions I have to answer, things I have to discern, emotions I have to process, or lines I have to walk. Some days, it feels impossible.

I, like many of you, struggle with being alone when I’m feeling anxious or overwhelmed. To sit with myself means to acknowledge that I have entered uncharted territory, a reality that I am presently unwilling to face. Typically, I cope with this uncertainty by drowning out my own thoughts and fears with shallow busyness, excessive media and news consumption, mindless internet scrolling, and music played loudly and often. This noise offers me false companionship that convinces me I’m ok, while the root problem of my fear to confront what is true festers just beneath the surface.

Somehow, through a series of small decisions starting with laundry and ending with the present, I have allowed the very quiet that blessed me the most all those months ago to be the thing that scares me the most.

I think a lot about the concept of behavioral economics, which, in public health terms, basically just means the study of how you can make healthful behaviors default behaviors. In the UK, I had a natural, built-in barrier in the form of a really old basement that blocked outside noise and allowed me to be fully present in my mind and body. In the absence of that natural barrier, and others like it, I have floundered. 

It's interesting how this can sneak up on you, or can sneak up on me, anyway. I haven’t felt depressed or acutely devastated these last few weeks, but I have felt a persistent anxiety, fear, and overstimulation that has rendered me incapable of being fully present and engaged in my daily life. I can live in the illusion of productivity, while simultaneously being completely emotionally checked out and physically exhausted, just kicking the can on all of the things that actually need to be addressed in my life. 

I need to come back into my own mind and body, and to let there be space to breathe again. 

A few weeks ago, in one of my most overwhelmed places, I did what I always do when I need a full breath: I drove to the ocean. I picked a new beach to explore with one of my favorite people, and I silenced my phone while I walked in the cool water of the sea. 

A few days later, I drove to the woods, and I walked, and prayed, and looked up at the treetops and blue sky, pausing often to quietly soak in the sounds of birds chirping and water rushing through the creek bed below. It felt good to be alone. 

Then I drove to the beach again, this time a more familiar stretch of sand, and I found a spot near the base of the cliffs where I could look out at the crashing waves as I read and prayed some more. 

Then I took my friends to the top of a mountain where we sat in stillness above the clouds as we watched the waning sun pass beneath them. 

Then I baked and spent an afternoon using my hands to do something I love. Later, I enjoyed the fruits of that labor in the form of a dark chocolate Australian mud cake that I shared with family and neighbors. 

These moments haven’t solved the problem. I still feel anxious and avoidant. I am still scrolling to self-soothe. But they have given me the space to let out a long-held-in deep breath, and for that I am grateful. With each passing day, I’ve noticed that the quiet has gotten just a little easier.

If you’ve read my blog at all, you’ve probably realized that I write about being present a lot. It’s because I’m terrible at it. I have to pursue presence, or else it is far easier for me to get caught up in the ways of this world than it is for me to sit quietly, unplugged. In the absence of clothespins, I have had to create my own default behaviors, sometimes in the form of offering to put a letter in the mail for someone else just so I get out of my own door and en route to the ocean (true story).

Our world is so loud and so fast, all the time. Please be still and quiet with me. Not always, but sometimes. Ok?