Mindfulness and Candles

 

 

 

I normally conceive a blog the night before but a week last Thursday, fate took a hand. Our hub went down and we were without internet for a week. A good friend lost her internet recently, and I commiserated but without really understanding the full horror: TV, the Sonos sound system, the Hive controls for lighting and heating - all were affected. Okay, not horror. Inconvenience perhaps. 

The inconvenience began first thing in the morning before being fully awake. No Sonos amounts to no radio. I had to rummage about and find one we mercifully hadn’t recycled. And now it was time for the first strong tea of the morning, and I realised, again, how perverse human nature can be.

I remember hearing about a very old lady who regularly got up at 5.30 in the morning, made herself a cup of tea and lit a small candle. There she sat in semi darkness looking at the candle, letting her mind wander, thinking and praying for all the friends she had lost. Ian McEwan reinforced the point, lamenting the growing lack of solitude in life which allows you the time to wander through 'the garden of your mind.' 

I spend a lot of time wandering through my mind-garden, so I don’t feel too bad about the glaring inconsistency in my response to having no internet. 

Before I thoroughly wake up, I’m a slave to routine. My early hours are spent in reading the papers online, sipping tea, and listening to the news. In theory, it’s a perfect example of juggling time. In between the boring bits— interviewers discussing the mating habits of frogs —I’d sip or scroll down to an interesting headline. Recently, however, to my shame and mortification, I’ve discovered I can no longer juggle these three things at once. I can sip tea and listen to the radio or sip tea and read a newspaper article—but now all three are taxing my concentration, bit of a workout you might say, like a magpie on speed, the mind switching from radio to newspaper and back again, while the tea grows steadily colder.

Well, I thought. No internet. No online paper. Just me and tea and the radio. (Better than cold turkey – tea and a candle.)

The first item was on the Ukraine, then an interesting discussion on AI. From there it went downhill, discussions on tit warblers, obscure artists enjoying their two minutes of fame on the radio, good farming practice. I found myself staring at the sky trying to read clouds and eventually settled on an old wine catalogue, then a small advertising booklet called Monnow Voice in-between boiling the kettle.

I learnt all manner of things: the virtues of roof cleaning utilising Soft-Washing technology and anti-microbials, Hot Tubs, Acorn Triple Glazing, a Baptist Talk on Biblical Women and Equity – which sparked my interest but was a week out of date. Juggling a mere two balls was just plain tedious. I even contemplated cleaning the kitchen. But now bliss—we are connected to the world. My powers of concentration have been rested to the extreme and I’m enjoying a return to routine, mindfulness and candles just a bad dream.