I am not, by nature, a calm or relaxed person. I like activity. Target at 8am on a Sunday is my typical happy place. I write long to do lists on a weekly basis. I keep a color coated calendar. When I was a kid, weekends made me nervous because they were unpredictable and unplanned. One time in college, when I was about 20 years old, I went to a Staples with my family to go back-to-school shopping without a prepared list of what I’d need and I had an actual hyperventilating/crying breakdown in the doorway to the store. All my life I have been so tightly wound that I pretty much bounce where I want to go.
Naturally a move to the busiest place on earth — the city that never sleeps — made a lot of sense to me. The frenetic energy of Manhattan, the go-go-go attitude of the people who live here, the idea that you can literally do anything at any time on any day appeals to every fiber of my being. Yet somehow it is in this place that I have learned to sit completely and utterly still with absolutely nothing to do.
I was prompted to write this piece after my recent experience going to the Apple store. I needed to get my phone fixed, and the lovely gentleman helping me told me it would be about an hour before I could have my phone back. Having not anticipated that, I had no backup stuffs with me. No book/magazine/newspaper to read. I didn’t bring my computer or iPad or even a pen and paper. I did not have a friend with me as it was 9am on a Saturday. I hadn’t even walked my dog with me to the store. I had no errands to run, and I couldn’t call anyone or text anyone or listen to music because my phone — my usual source of entertainment, distraction, and efficiency was the thing being fixed.
So I sat there. Alone. With nothing. For a while. And I was fine.
That kind of moment has previously stumped me for all I’m worth. I’ve felt anxious and unsettled. I’ve been nervous and afraid. I’ve been unable to actually just be. Maybe after years of unintentionally practiced urban meditation I have moved past these fears without even knowing it.
For me, unintentional urban meditation is when you get stuck on the subway for 10 minutes and there’s no internet and it’s crowded and you can’t get to your phone or look at a book so you’re alone. Or when you go to a meeting and the person is running late, but you don’t know how late and you don’t want to look rude so you sit not touching anything. Or when your dog gets bit by another dog and you rush to the emergency vet hospital and you didn’t think to bring something with you to do while you wait. Or when the battery of your phone dies while you are out and about and so you are walking around alone without the ability to distract yourself from yourself.
If I get to choose between yoga/meditation and cleaning out the bathroom, I will pick cleaning out the bathroom 100 out of 100 times. But not realizing that I’m meditating when I’m forced by my urban life to sit down and shut up and be alone has actually been pretty great and pretty positive and I’m thankful for it.
So, it is here, in the busiest city on earth that I have learned to sit completely and utterly still and be okay.
