meditation

I think that I could go a long time without saying anything.

This mindfulness course I'm taking is 8 2-hour sessions, plus one full day session. I found out last Thursday that the full day thing was going to be spent in silence. When I was telling someone this on Friday night, I allowed as how I was worried about that. 6 hours? In silence?

“Yeah,” she said. “But you're not a gabber, or anything. So should be easy, eh?”

'Struth, but still, I had my doubts. It was easy, though. The silence part ended about an hour earlier than I thought it would, so I ended up not talking from 9 until 2, with the exception of saying thank you to the woman who sold me my salad at the Green Door.

I was disappointed. Wanted to keep going with it the same way I wanted to keep going with the eye mask at the gallery.

Probably it shouldn't have been a surprise. I work in front of a computer, as do all of my co-workers, and often the librarian side of the office is silent for an hour or two at a time, until one of the non-librarians comes to ask us a question. Then I go home and sit in front of the computer. I talk through my fingers – a lot of email – but it's actually pretty easy to shift to nothing for the day.

What it pointed out to me was just how tired I am. Maybe paying that much attention to everything you do it tiring in and of itself, but I'd reckon that stopping to take stock and realize how big my sleep debt is might have something to do with how worn out I feel now.