The Importance of Creating Movement

Image / Farrah Emami

12:54

12:55

12:56

Seconds pass like minutes, minutes slink by like hours. I have watched my computer clock for ages now, pretending to look busy like my fellow coworkers who clack away at their keyboards and stare, unflinchingly, at their buzzing computer monitors.

12:57

I open Chrome, close it, open it again, mindlessly move files around on my desktop, anything to look productive.

12:58

Over the past few months, my job description devolved from graphic & web designer to certified clock watcher. I go through the motions of work—design a website, a banner, a blog here and there—but in truth I am watching seconds tick tick tick away.

12:59

The problem is, I am not watching the clock for any particular reason. I do not have anywhere to be. There are no pressing issues I must resolve. I have goals in mind for my lunch break—I like to spend my free time on my own projects rather than eating—but I know that my personal motivation is nil.

1:00

Despite a lack of purpose, when my computer clock flicks to the top of the hour I scurry from my desk like a roach escaping a can of Raid®. I walk as if I am late to an appointment, creating a false sense of urgency in the hope it will help me…what? Rev into an inspired state?

In our office building there are rows of small, dark rooms. Most employees refer to these as the “Cry Rooms.” They are a regular haunt for those who are having a difficult day/week/year/life. Some are under the impression that the rooms are soundproof, though the walls are as permeable to noise as tissue paper is to water. If you are in a room, you can always hear the others cry...or curse out a co-worker, or call their mom, or schedule an OB/GYN appointment or, if they’re especially bold, have a phone interview with another company. Out of courtesy, my fellow employees and I keep our eavesdropping to ourselves. Sure, we love fodder for more gossip, but secrets are safe in the Cry Room.

Image / Farrah Emami

These rooms are my favorite. Not just for the eavesdropping (no shame), but for the solitude. A pair of noise-cancelling headphones, a dark space, and well worn armchairs make the Cry Rooms an ideal reprieve from my company’s fun-and-hip and loud-as-fuck-open-floor-plan. It is the only time, all day, that eyes are not on me.

Today I navigate to a particularly dark corner room. I shut the large glass door and pull out my laptop and, still moving quickly as if my “ideas” will slip from my mind if I dally, I navigate to a word processing app.

This is where I think.

This is where I purge my best thoughts.

This is where I sift through the refuse and pull splinters of substance.

This is where I stack words like bones, make rough literary skeletons, and string together sentences and paragraphs and ideas to create full fledged, meaty articles.

This is where nothing has happened in the last six months.

For weeks, I spent my lunch hour staring at blank word docs. If I felt especially inspired, I may type out a few sentences or convoluted paragraphs. Yet by the end of my break, my document looked like a battlefield. Words were scattered in pieces throughout the page, sentences struck down before they could stand, letters dismembered from their groups and floating on the outskirts.

Today is no different. I watch my cursor blink blink blink just as I watched my work clock tick tick tock moments before. I listen to my Cry Room neighbor actually crying. I wonder if she is upset about work, or home, or both. She exits the room and it fills a moment later, this time with a man and a woman. Each time the woman speaks the man interrupts her and explains to her what she is actually thinking.

I imagine there is a story in this. I am sure I can write something profound about Cry Rooms and the facade of happiness we put on at work, which crumbles once we escape prying eyes. I try to type something on the topic, but quickly delete it.

The man next door is in the midst of telling his female "friend" that she is frustrated with another co-worker for xyz, not her initial proclamation of abc, when I realize it is the end of my lunch hour. The only words on my screen are "stuck,” “how to find spark,” and “movement.” Great start.

I slink back to my desk, too used to this routine to feel defeated by my lack of “progress” (but progress towards what?).

I take a seat, turn on my computer, focus my eyes back on the clock.

Again, seconds pass like minutes, minutes slink by like hours. I go through the motions of work—design a website, a banner, a blog here and there—but in truth I am honing my expertise in time keeping. It is not because I am bored. It is not because I have other things to do. I watch minutes slink into hours because time is the only sense of motion and variation I will witness all day.

(Though even this, I know, is static in its own sense.)

· · ·

After a long hiatus, I am finally back to blogging.

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A Fresh Start

You will have to forgive my absence; I left unintentionally.

My lack of posting came from the essay above. I was unable to find inspiration anywhere. I felt stuck in so many aspects of my life that my pause in writing happened naturally. In fact, I hardly even noticed.

Yet I had this sensation about the next theme for the blog. It had to be about movement. I don’t know why, exactly. I just felt it. For months I tried to write on the topic of finding one’s spark, creating movement in our own lives, and the benefits of change. But with flow and inspiration lacking in my own life, I found I had nothing to write. So eventually, I gave up.

Only after I quit my job (more on that later) was I able to quell my stillness and finally operate again. No longer do I watch the clock to create a false sense of movement. Instead, I set goals and personal deadlines and peer at the time every once in a while to keep myself on schedule. I feel reinvigorated by change, and I want you to feel the same.

If you connect to the stifling sensation of stillness, then this quarter's topic of movement is dedicated to you. Let’s inject some fluidity into our lives.

And if you do not feel stuck right now, good to hear! I am truly excited for you. Nonetheless, I believe you will find some encouragement, inspiration, and just plain entertaining articles in the coming months.

Either way, let’s all move together.

From August to September you will see articles about feeling stuck, sparking joy (Marie Kondo status, of course), climbing out of a rut, growing, challenging yourself, and more. Expect feature articles on dancers, talks about getting on anti-depressants, tips on savings and financing, impromptu trips, planner ideas, addressing obstacles, and all the in-betweens that deal with physical and mental motion.

It’s going to be fun, y’all. I’m excited to move with you.

-grace

Image / Farrah Emami