1 post tagged “converse”

Read a piece about the death of idle (spacing out) time.  How we don't have idle time because we fill every moment with cell calls or texting, how we don't stand on bank lines or sit over coffee just staring into space anymore because we're always electronically connected to something, always distracted.  Kids/Teens especially don't ever have to be idle...or, more to the point, bored.  And what a problem that is because boredom is the sort of 'waiting room' to creative and inspired thoughts.  I'm totally paraphrasing, but that's what was implied.  And I couldn't help but remember how freakin' bored I could get waiting for my parents (they worked full time and on weekends in their own business).  My brother and I waiting for them at their tiny store so that they could drop us off somewhere or do something with us or bring us to buy those new Converse sneakers that they'd promised us the month before.  And boy, did we spend a shitload of time staring out windows, alone with our own thoughts and plans of escape.  But maybe that's why I can be deliriously happy in a car for hours at a time with my attention lost only on the road and the clouds (not that that happens too often with kids), why I sit by windows in coffee shops and stare out (or eavesdrop on nearby conversations), why I often don't hear my screaming cell phone and am surprised to read 'you have five unheard messages...want to check your mailbox now?'  No.  It also may be why I can't do two things at once.  I can't shop and talk.  Not only because I can't freakin' read labels and talk on the cell at once, but because people who do that look and sound as though they're in their own private bubbles.  It makes me want to poke a finger in their faces and stand back for the big 'pop'.  Most Saturdays I get to lay in bed for an extra half an hour and all I do is stare at the ceiling.  It's the big joke around here.  "What's mom doing?" 
     "Oh, you know, she's just spacing.  Don't bug her yet."
    This embrace of the idle extends to my kids as well.  When they whine, "I'm bored"  I say "Good."  Which usually sets off a chain reaction of more whines, then, eventually, some good old fashioned staring off into space for at least a few minutes.
    Perhaps the rumors of the death of staring idly are greatly exaggerated for some of us.