Channeling My Inner House Cat

And unlearning yet another Big Lie

Good morning, friend, and happy Sunday.

Since Thanksgiving, I’ve been moving slowly. I hosted and cooked for the first time, and I’ve been in recovery mode ever since. I’ve been laying on the couch, taking little quiet walks with the dog, watching TV, and eating meals at whatever time I want. This morning, there’s bread rising on the counter and the oven is heating up. It’s unbelievably quiet outside, and the only sounds are the appliance buzz of the refrigerator and the scrabble of squirrel feet across the roof. The post-holiday lull is heavy on the eyelids and in the air.

I am bad at resting. When I do nothing for too long, I start feeling guilty and agitated. I burn to leave the house, and if there’s nowhere I need to go, I’ll invent an errand to appease my own mind. I can’t rest even when I’m exhausted. It’s as if I think I’m being watched and judged at all times - like someone is keeping a tally of my productive and wasteful hours, and they’re not loving what they see.

In the last couple of years, I’m learning a lot about rest. I’m putting my own attitudes about resting under a microscope, looking at them with a higher and higher dose of skepticism and critical inquiry. I’m taking more cues from life around me: my partner, who is a champion rester; the dog and cat; the plants that go dormant in winter; the bears that fatten up and mosey on towards their dens.

There is nothing in nature that tells us not to slow down and relax. The only rush is the one we’ve built on our own shoulders. It came to America with the colonizers, and it’s since become as American as carving up a bird no one really likes and pretending late November is about peace and gratitude. Another great societal lie: productivity begets worthiness.

This lie gets passed around in our communities and passed down in our lineage. I hear it every time I open Instagram - or, God forbid, LinkedIn. I see it in my own family and in my friends’ families. A lot of us are scared of what may happen when we slow down a bit. We skip the rest stops and power on. Are we afraid of what we might meet there?

Knowing this is a problem doesn’t mean I’ve fixed it in my own life. It’s still extremely hard for me to stay home all day. I still feel uncomfortable knowing I’ve done nothing for hours. But I appreciate these moments - the days after a holiday, or the morning after a snowstorm - where the world slows down and we give ourselves collective permission to just stop running. I’m inspired by them, because they give me a window the kind of life that actually is worth chasing - the kind of life that, paradoxically, is utterly chase-free.

This is to say that I’m trying. I’m working slowly to unlearn my own metronome, at least a little. On these slow days, I want to feel an indulgence completely free of guilt. And I want the same for you.

Are you unlearning something in your own life? I’d love to hear about it.