On Relaxation
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© Adam Granger
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Last summer, my wife generously agreed to accompany me on a drive from St Paul to Tennessee for a week's worth of work. I'm a full-time musician and, in my early dotage at age 61, I care less and less for the romance of getting in a car alone and driving all over creation to play gigs. Having the brains of the outfit along helped immeasurably and, in a gesture of appreciation, I agreed to listen on the drive to Jane Austen's Victorian masterpiece Pride and Prejudice--all nine CDs of it. Along about Champaign-Urbana, when protagonist Elizabeth Bennett has spent the afternoon—hers and ours—agonizing over the fact that Mr Darcy had furrowed his brow during a visit the week before, I finally said (not too plaintively I hope), “These people never DO ANYTHING!”
Indeed, the most dramatic thing that happened between St Paul and Cincinnati was when Miss Bennett walked a couple of miles to a neighboring manor, on disc five, and got her petticoats dirty. (Of course, the prole in me can't ignore the fact that the reason the English nobility were able to chill with their buds was because they had seventeen million people in the working class doing everything for them but tweezing their nose hairs. And even there, Lord Chiswick—well, never mind. The point is that they spent much of their abundant spare time lying out.)
Now, this is not yet another sermon about Americans not knowing how to relax. Rather, it's a reflection on our perception versus our reality, as regards opportunities to relax. Over the last century and a half, we Yankees have fought for fewer working hours and more leisure time, but we tend not to use that hard-won time doing nothing, if you follow my syntax. The fact is, we hold the act of doing nothing simultaneously in awe and at arm's length (with a dash of disapprobation thrown in): it's an unattainable but perhaps undesirable grail.
My St Paul neighborhood has more porches and decks than Scrooge McDuck has dollars, but I never see anyone using them. Including us. Whoever had these added, or bought houses that already had them, imagined themselves the contented couple, sitting outside, watching the world going by, waving at the neighbors and, for the nonce, doing nothing. The same with the coveted but generally seldom-used fireplace: intent goes up against reality, and intent loses.
What's going on? Well, several things. First, we are legitimately more busy than our forebears: they had no orthodontists, soccer games, shopping malls or samba classes. Once they had run the hounds, flounced their crinoline and lit Jeanette Isabella's torch (none of which takes very long, really), there was nothing left to do but obsess over Mr Darcy's furrowed brow. For days.
Another factor was mentioned earlier: somewhere along the line, we (Americans, especially) came to equate doing nothing with shiftlessness and failure. Kicking back on the porch for an hour after a hard day's work became conflated with being a ne'er-do-well who has nothing better to do than to hang out and wait for trouble to come sauntering by. Idle hands and all that.
A third factor is a sense of fair play: my wife is constitutionally unable to do nothing if there is something to be done. The problem with that is that there's always something to be done. She comes from a large family and, in their tiny, packed house, by the time they'd all gotten everything done it was usually so late that their attempts, finally, to kick back would result in their falling asleep uncomfortably upright in their chairs in front of Jay Leno. While this is in one sense admirable, it has to be said that, by this system, no one ever gets any guilt-free down time.
On the seventh day, God rested. Was there nothing left for God to do, or was God trying to tell us that we are supposed to spend 14% of our lives in true repose, undone chores notwithstanding? And, if that's the case, then how on earth are we to achieve this? Cancel Caitlyn's soccer? Let Tanner's gaptooth go uncorrected? Of course not. But in a typical day, mini-moments to smell the roses often present themselves. Here are a few personal examples:
A local big-box hardware store has a sloped moving ramp which carries me between levels. This trip takes ninety seconds—a good chunk of time, actually: enough for a quick reverie (I just have to be sure I snap out of it before reaching the end of the ride). Delays at a railroad crossing near my house afford opportunities for nonspecific reflection (don't ask me how I learned this, but the secret here is to put the car in park first). Waiting for my number to be called at the license bureau? Another opportunity for compulsory inactivity. Ditto driving through Chicago. And let's not forget plane travel.
All right, this is getting a tad preachy, and I know I promised, and I'm sorry. It's just that, although we may not have time in our schedules for these delays, there they are, nevertheless, and what are you gonna do? Race the train? Run up the ramp? Jump the license bureau line? No, you're there for the duration, as the army used to say, and all I'm suggesting is that you might want to try turning gasket pressure tests such as these into dollops of relaxation.
And besides, these delays are nothing compared to what our ancestors faced. We may have to endure a seven-hour transoceanic flight, but even the busiest 19th-century Type A robber baron had no choice but to veg for a full week if he wanted to get to Europe. And, before 1900, he couldn't even contact the rest of his cohort by wireless during the voyage. Talk about a slacker.
And so, practicing what I'm trying not to preach, I'm going to listen again, on my next long drive, to the story of Miss Bennett and her soiled petticoats and Mr Darcy and his furrowed brow. There's an opportunity for personal betterment that I missed the first time around, and I aim to carpe the diem.
Indeed, the most dramatic thing that happened between St Paul and Cincinnati was when Miss Bennett walked a couple of miles to a neighboring manor, on disc five, and got her petticoats dirty. (Of course, the prole in me can't ignore the fact that the reason the English nobility were able to chill with their buds was because they had seventeen million people in the working class doing everything for them but tweezing their nose hairs. And even there, Lord Chiswick—well, never mind. The point is that they spent much of their abundant spare time lying out.)
Now, this is not yet another sermon about Americans not knowing how to relax. Rather, it's a reflection on our perception versus our reality, as regards opportunities to relax. Over the last century and a half, we Yankees have fought for fewer working hours and more leisure time, but we tend not to use that hard-won time doing nothing, if you follow my syntax. The fact is, we hold the act of doing nothing simultaneously in awe and at arm's length (with a dash of disapprobation thrown in): it's an unattainable but perhaps undesirable grail.
My St Paul neighborhood has more porches and decks than Scrooge McDuck has dollars, but I never see anyone using them. Including us. Whoever had these added, or bought houses that already had them, imagined themselves the contented couple, sitting outside, watching the world going by, waving at the neighbors and, for the nonce, doing nothing. The same with the coveted but generally seldom-used fireplace: intent goes up against reality, and intent loses.
What's going on? Well, several things. First, we are legitimately more busy than our forebears: they had no orthodontists, soccer games, shopping malls or samba classes. Once they had run the hounds, flounced their crinoline and lit Jeanette Isabella's torch (none of which takes very long, really), there was nothing left to do but obsess over Mr Darcy's furrowed brow. For days.
Another factor was mentioned earlier: somewhere along the line, we (Americans, especially) came to equate doing nothing with shiftlessness and failure. Kicking back on the porch for an hour after a hard day's work became conflated with being a ne'er-do-well who has nothing better to do than to hang out and wait for trouble to come sauntering by. Idle hands and all that.
A third factor is a sense of fair play: my wife is constitutionally unable to do nothing if there is something to be done. The problem with that is that there's always something to be done. She comes from a large family and, in their tiny, packed house, by the time they'd all gotten everything done it was usually so late that their attempts, finally, to kick back would result in their falling asleep uncomfortably upright in their chairs in front of Jay Leno. While this is in one sense admirable, it has to be said that, by this system, no one ever gets any guilt-free down time.
On the seventh day, God rested. Was there nothing left for God to do, or was God trying to tell us that we are supposed to spend 14% of our lives in true repose, undone chores notwithstanding? And, if that's the case, then how on earth are we to achieve this? Cancel Caitlyn's soccer? Let Tanner's gaptooth go uncorrected? Of course not. But in a typical day, mini-moments to smell the roses often present themselves. Here are a few personal examples:
A local big-box hardware store has a sloped moving ramp which carries me between levels. This trip takes ninety seconds—a good chunk of time, actually: enough for a quick reverie (I just have to be sure I snap out of it before reaching the end of the ride). Delays at a railroad crossing near my house afford opportunities for nonspecific reflection (don't ask me how I learned this, but the secret here is to put the car in park first). Waiting for my number to be called at the license bureau? Another opportunity for compulsory inactivity. Ditto driving through Chicago. And let's not forget plane travel.
All right, this is getting a tad preachy, and I know I promised, and I'm sorry. It's just that, although we may not have time in our schedules for these delays, there they are, nevertheless, and what are you gonna do? Race the train? Run up the ramp? Jump the license bureau line? No, you're there for the duration, as the army used to say, and all I'm suggesting is that you might want to try turning gasket pressure tests such as these into dollops of relaxation.
And besides, these delays are nothing compared to what our ancestors faced. We may have to endure a seven-hour transoceanic flight, but even the busiest 19th-century Type A robber baron had no choice but to veg for a full week if he wanted to get to Europe. And, before 1900, he couldn't even contact the rest of his cohort by wireless during the voyage. Talk about a slacker.
And so, practicing what I'm trying not to preach, I'm going to listen again, on my next long drive, to the story of Miss Bennett and her soiled petticoats and Mr Darcy and his furrowed brow. There's an opportunity for personal betterment that I missed the first time around, and I aim to carpe the diem.
