Of doing nothing and other stories…
I had plonked the bean bag in front of the window that afternoon in preparation for a prolonged reading session. Ever since, I was stretched out lazily on the length of it. I’d adjusted the bag’s height in a way to cut out the view of any building nearby and only the sky was visible from the window. Those distracting cable wires continued to be in the frame, but then birds of all variety were found swinging from them and I was willing to overlook that distracting foreground to a bright blue sky.
I had gathered all the Sunday newspapers to go through into a pile after lunch. As an afterthought, I add a book to that, in case the Sunday edits bored me. The plan had been to transition to a siesta as I read. The sunlight made zebra strips on my feet through the window bars and it disappeared after sometime as the Sun moved West. My feet were left feeling warm.
The gentle wind was not letting up a bit and I liked it that way. I had been reading non-stop for 5 hours now…something I used to do often till some years back and before work consumed me. Except for an occasional vehicle or the chirping of birds, nothing dented the silence.
I was done with the book. The newspapers lying around did not attract me. I decided I wanted to do nothing for sometime. No wait, I did not close my eyes….I wanted to consciously do nothing.
The breeze continued to have a soothing effect, the chirping was lost in the background of the new nothingness that enveloped me….I was conscious only of my breath as it crossed the wind’s flow. I stared at the sky, that haze of immense-ness, that in daylight hides the stars of old, the blueness that filled my sight. The wires were distant specks, insignificant. My head was be fret of any thoughts, deliberate or stray.
I have never tried this before and it felt good to not have the mind strung like bow for once. This may be what they call a meditative state.
Maybe not.
