Thinking the Think

PLUS: a new monthly in-person co-write with snacks!

A Note for You, If You’re Having A Bad Day

Dear Friend,

I start all my classes with a check-in. How are you on a scale from one to ten, and what is one reason why? If you can’t think of one reason why, you can say what you had for breakfast — because actually, that is one reason why, isn’t it? I’ve been doing this for the past ten years, and I must have stolen it from someone, but I can’t remember whom. The patterns are clear, across the years, across the classes, across all the demographics I’ve taught.

On the first week of school following a break, everyone is a high number. Everyone is an eight, or a nine, or even a ten. People feel excited and nervous. And I get it: all six of the times in my life I’ve gotten a new laptop computer, I’ve marveled at how sparkling the screen, how clean the keys, how empty the desktop. I’ve sworn up and down, six times in a row, that I would never eat while using this laptop; never grab the screen with my fingertips, and immediately sort files into folders. As I write this to you from a laptop full of crumbs and 3,211 “Screenshot” jpegs on the desktop, I’m laughing at how often we go into a thing that is pretty much the same thing as the thing we went into before, believing that we are different, and so the thing will be different. So it is with a school year.

Week two can also be a good week, but even then, the numbers are slipping. By week three, the students are exhausted; spread too thin. There are too many things, and it’s not just school, but their friends, their partners, their parents. It’s what’s going on in the world. They haven’t gotten enough sleep.

What’s really true is that the world is designed to ask too much of us most of the time.

I came here to tell you that maybe the most important thing you can do for yourself is to make sure you have time to think. But I’m getting distracted by this story about Kate¹ who was in one of my high school classes like five years ago. And it’s a little bit of a digression, but also, it is relevant.

On a day in February, Kate, who usually had a lot of joie de vivre, came into the class, put her head down on a desk, and put her coat over her head. She stayed like that for the whole first half of class, refusing to participate in any activities. During the break, I went over to her and asked what was going on.

“I don’t know, I’m just really not OK. Not the kind of not OK where I need, like, you to report it, but I just had such a tough weekend, and what happened last weekend is going to change the rest of my life, forever.”

“What happened last weekend?”

“I can’t tell you. It was my birthday.”

Please accept my assurances that this is not particularly startling. Students are often plagued by mistakes made over weekends, and the mistakes are usually about alcohol or pot. What makes this story about Kate unique isn’t the February part; it’s what happened in July.

In July, Kate, who had graduated, emailed me and asked if I could get lunch with her and another former student before she headed off for college. There, I had the chance to ask Kate, who was chipper and eager and seemingly very happy, about the February before.

“Oooooooh, that. Yeah, someone at my birthday party got too drunk and broke something of my mom’s.”

“Are you OK?”

“Yeah! What? Of course I’m OK!”

“It’s just, when I went over to you and asked you if you thought you would be OK, you told me that it was the worst you’d ever felt in your entire life. And I said, ‘I wonder if this will still matter as much to you in a year,’ and you told me that you were positive it would.”

“...I did? I don’t remember that.”

“It happened.”

“Huh! Weird. I must’ve been tired or something when I said that.”

This is not to say that truly life-alteringly horrible things can’t happen at birthday parties where someone got too drunk, because obviously, they can. It’s more clear-cut evidence that your Today Self is not particularly smart about how Big A Deal something is that might currently feel like a Big Deal.

Personally, I regularly think things are the worst they’ve ever been, and I come up with reasons why the thing will feel exactly the same amount of bad for the rest of my life. Nothing feels the same amount of bad for the rest of your life, unless you are going to die very soon.

As I write this, I can tell you that the last time I felt like my feet were on the ground was last March, on the Thursday before Easter. That Friday, I got a message about my daughter that complicated my life, and I reacted to it (I want to write the word “badly” but I think the truer word is) intensely. A huge work deadline loomed in mid-April; May is always bananas at our house (Luke’s birthday, my birthday, end of the school year, and now Mother’s Day); I got a new, huge contract (with quick turnarounds for art) at the end of the month; I took on another one of those in June; visitors stayed with us for two thirds of the month of July; I went to Portland in August, the day before school started; deadlines for two different book projects dotted September and October (plus my daughter’s birthday); and November into December is a head-exploding slog for any small business owner; then the biggest of all the deadlines in January; then school started with a new class I’d never taught before in addition to my other two. On the Thursday before Easter, I’d been journaling every day. I haven’t journaled two days in a row even once since then.

When I read through that list, I can see how much of it is good news, nice things, forward motion. But the sludge of not having the time to take care of myself has accumulated. My blood pressure is high; I’m getting dizzy a lot. Also — where are my new ideas? My Instagram account has basically atrophied; I haven’t made anything new in such a long time.

The last good thing I made for Instagram was a post about going to the library. I wrote it while on a walk to the library. The noise in my brain had been so loud and persistent that I decided not to listen to music, or a podcast, or a book, and just walk and think. I’ve probably told you about this before: the act of having a think. It used to be something I made sure there was time for, but it’s fallen by the wayside, along with yoga, reading, eating anything besides premade trail mix for lunch, walking, running, meditating, and, as stated, journaling. Those are the first things to go. And I could make the argument that the time doesn’t exist for having a think (In this economy?! Please.), but the fact remains: the time seems to exist to scroll. And, fact: Scrolling is less important than thinking.

Yesterday I walked to pick up my daughter and left my phone in my pocket and didn’t put on any music and decided to give myself the gift of a think. I am out of practice. When this happens, I think the words, “I am walking. I am having a think. What are the things I want to think about? I can think about anything I want.” Sometimes nothing comes up, so I think the words, “Nothing is coming up. Well, that’s OK. I’m just out here thinking. I don’t even have to think if I don’t want to. I can just walk. Just walking is harder!” And the thoughts come.

The difference in quality between a thought that you’re welcoming and one you’re suppressing is magnificent. Like water in a stream versus water you’re trying to keep from dripping through a hole in the roof of your house. At night, I have to push thoughts away; all the grimmest ones are emboldened by the dark and want my attention. Or like a vine-grape versus a gumdrop with grape flavoring. Usually, I am near a device, and the thinking gets too quickly squelched and turned into something else. “Ugh, my feet are getting wet. I bet there is a kind of shoe that doesn’t get wet. Let me google it. Let’s check Wirecutter. On sale! Oh look, these weird socks are on sale too. Can I afford the socks? To give as a gift? Whose birthday is coming up?” These are thoughts, sure, but they’re affected thoughts. They’re not really what my brain wants to be thinking about. They’re what the internet wants me to be thinking about.

When people say, “Replace doom-scrolling with something worth your time, like art-making or driving your grandmother to a dance,” it feels out-of-reach. I’m unlikely to stop scrolling to do something that’s hard to do. But to stop scrolling to think? That’s available right now.

Anyway, on my think yesterday, the thought I had was that I wanted to write to you, but everything is such sludge that I don’t feel like I have anything to say. I thought, “If I was having more thinks, I’d think of more things, but as it is, it’s been such a long time.” And then I thought, “Maybe I should tell my friend that they deserve to have a think, too.”

A true statement: I have never, not even one time, gotten an idea for something to write or draw from something I saw on Instagram. This is wild, because every single day I think, “Maybe I’ll just look on Instagram for some inspiration. See what people are into.” This is never ever ever ever ever where the ideas come from! They come from sitting still in a chair, or walking through a neighborhood all alone, or gazing at the wallpaper in someone else’s bathroom when you have to sit there but you left your phone in the other room.

I hope you have some time to think. Maybe even today. Maybe even now.

Love,

Sophie

Housekeeping:

It’s a little late, but if you’re going to be in Chicago on Wednesday, the Office of Modern Composition is hosting a free in-person co-write that I will be at! Co-writing! We’re going to have them on the first Wednesday of the month through May

In-Person Co-Writes

The first Wednesday of each month in Chicago…

The Office of Modern Composition is pleased to announce that this spring we’ll be hosting (FREE!) monthly in-person co-writes.

A co-write is when you show up to a specific place with another writer and sit and write together for an agreed-upon amount of time. Since 2020, OMC has hosted weekly co-writes that meet online. (You can find those on our MeetUp page.) But now, if you’re interested in joining us in person, we’re inviting you to come write with us at––get this––the actual, literal office of the Office of Modern Composition.

When and where will it be?

The first Wednesday of the month:

• Wednesday, March 5th from 4-5:30 pm

• Wednesday, April 2nd from 4-5:30 pm

• Wednesday, May 7th from 4–5:30 pm

Office of Modern Composition, Suite 2002

8 S. Michigan Avenue, Suite 2002, Chicago, IL 60615

What should I bring?

Whatever you need to do your writing: a computer and a charger (if you think you’ll need to charge it while you’re there) or paper notebook and pen; a portable typewriter; whatever works for you.

Can I invite somebody else to come with me?

Yep, great idea. Go ahead..

Loose Thoughts:

• These are the kinds of thoughts that benefit from frequent thinks.

• What nail polish color is best for these days?

• I am eagerly thinking about Spring. That means I’m fantasizing and buying way too many seeds. I was just reading a Better Homes and Gardens article that was about starting seeds from your own home, and they had three pieces of advice, which were all gimmes, and so I forgot the first two. But the third one was, “Don’t get carried away.” And this has been my problem every year. I am too ambitious. I plant too many things. I lose track of the plants and don’t have time for them. The only plants that ever succeed are tomatoes, and not the fruit of the plant, just the plant itself. I guess if it’s not fruiting much it’s not successful, huh? And sunflowers, usually, I guess. But oh now, I’ll have to scale back this year, which devastates me. I am only sure that I want to have zinnias.

• Why aren’t there any fruits or vegetables that start with “i”? I’m living in a world, for this sentence only, where I’m unwilling to go to google for this, and so there might very well be an i-vegetable that I don’t know about, but I’m really trying to think of one, and I can’t.

• Happy Mardi Gras season for all who observe. Here are a few photos of me through Mardi Gras seasons past for your consumption and enjoyment. (I think it’s OK to post them because they’re all on Facebook, which is public, but if you’re in one of these photos and want me to take it down, say the word and it’s gone.)

1. Not her real name.

Ari and me in 2009. I think this costume was the pigeon from Don’t Let The Pigeon Drive The Bus. And Ari was the Paper Bag Princess.

Alexis and eye. (Me.)

You can find me towards the bottom in the middle. I am wearing a purple felt outfit with teeth. A person I had a big crush on is touching my back.

Dressing up like a New Orleans house.

This was the first year that Luke and I did The Lemonade Parade.I think that this wig was, like, some kind of Anime (?) wig. Both of Luke’s clothing articles were mine, and I wish I’d never gotten rid of them.

A photo Bob took of me in 2015, after we’d left.