Dear Reader, Be Patient

we could all use a little boredom

Dear Reader,

I’m sitting in the Philadelphia airport eating lunch before I board a flight to Memphis for a speaking event, and it always seems in these quiet moments before I get on yet another plane that I think of you.

I thought of you last week when I was in Orlando, standing in the hallway, waiting for the elevator to take me down one floor (should I have taken the stairs in that moment? yes). I thought about the things I write about, my new book, what words mean to us, and how I can continue to be vulnerable, honest, and even fierce in my embodiments in the world.

When I travel, I think a lot about patience and about people, because I notice that I’m not that patient.

Specifically, I notice that any time there’s a lull in space—waiting to board the plane, waiting for the elevator, waiting for my food, sitting in the Uber, sitting in my hotel room, sitting, waiting, sitting and waiting—in that lull, I pick up my phone (again) and scroll social media, check my email for the thousandth time, anything to fill the space, anything to avoid boredom.

I remember in college when I’d just gotten pregnant with my first son and I was enrolled in a huge, freshman level geology class. I’d made a friend or two, and I was really enjoying the class, until I noticed the presence of iPhones. I will tell you right now that I avoided getting an iPhone for years because I was disgusted with the way everything changed once they appeared.

Before, we all played SNAKE on our phones until we got bored and then we turned back to our books or sometimes, to each other. Eye contact or body language, a chat here and there kept us connected as people, and then something shifted.

I felt alone in the world, but proudly held to my flip phone while those naive college kids around me lost their way to a tiny computer screen. I know it’s ironic that I now have a job that relies heavily on these same screens and worlds. I know.

But back then, all I noticed was humans losing contact with each other, and I was about to bring a fresh little human into the world. I wanted the patience and the boredom a little longer before everything changed.

Kaitlin standing in Uganda, about 20 years old

Now, I have two kids who are 9 and 11, and while they don’t have phones yet and we try to model for them the goodness of exploration and yes, even boredom, we ourselves don’t show it. We are attached to the things that keep us “fed” and when I’m traveling it’s so clear.

I crave boredom. Do you?

Sometimes I wish I could just stare at a wall for 10 minutes and see what happens.

It’s why we go on no-tech retreats or escape to wildernesses here and abroad to find ourselves and the land.

But how do we find ourselves here and now when we cannot escape our everyday lives?

Let’s start with 10 minutes of boredom.

Because we know that boredom leads to curiosity and curiosity leads to fun, exploration, and questions. And questions lead us to ourselves one way or another.

Call it meditation, call it presence or mindfulness, which I definitely write about in Living Resistance.

But for now, I’ll call it boredom, because I’m trying to get myself weaned off these damn phones, even for a little bit. I’m trying to find my way back to my body again, back to the old pastime of people-watching, of noticing the wall sconces in a place or what it feels like to put my feet on the floor of a flying plane.

I want to take a big bite of this incredible airport burger and savor it for a second before I check my email.

And perhaps I’m just on total sensory-overload from this book launch, it’s certainly true.

But our most raw seasons teach us about ourselves, don’t they?

And what I’m learning is that boredom and patience are virtues, practices, embodiments themselves.

So, I’m leaning in and asking what it means to find these practices, and myself, again.

Singing to my youngest son in the Ozark Mountains, about 7 years ago