Process

June 19, 2020

I haven’t written here in more than a week. I started writing a post on June 16^th but didn’t finish it. It was about Singapore easing restrictions and the feelings that emerged around that. The first one for most – though not me I think – was relief. A friend texted, liberation is nigh.

That night I slept 7 hours and 17 mins, much more than the 5 hours, I had been sleeping most nights. Some part of me had relaxed. Something did believe that this could be over someday. But I also felt a tightness in my forehead, tension in my neck, and continued anxiety. Bombay was still doing so badly. My sister and mother were still cooped up. I knew that I wouldn’t really relax till things began improving there. 

The next morning I had sat on the sofa and sipped my perfect cup of assam tea. I felt empty. So many I knew had done so much in these three months. Some had written the first drafts of books; many more had finished on-line courses. I had nothing visible, nothing tangible -- nothing I could talk to anyone about to show-case these three months. Part of me had hoped that one of the dozen or so agents I had sent out my book query, for Boiling Frogs, would reply. I wanted to emerge from the lockdown with hope of my book being published before the end of the year. I had hoped to start another and be halfway through the first draft. If I had been a character in a film or book these are things that would have happened for sure. But i am not and nothing happened and I feel like I have done absolutely nothing. Nothing that I could talk about anyway.

I knew I had confronted a ton of inner demons and inadequacies and understood myself better. I had listened to many others while they grappled with their own increased anxieties and fears that amplified through the months of lockdown and isolation. I had trained 5 days a week in the confines of my home with nothing but a chi-ishi and I still had decent muscle tone. But none of this was something tangible that I could talk about to anyone. Did it make it less valuable? 

In some part of me it did. The pressures of product rather than process still affect me deeply. Out of the many conversations I had with people during this time very few actually focused on process and I love hearing about process in all its dimenions.

On Wednesday a friend talked about his completed dissertation. One of the things he said was that it started as a journey, a personal query about race, personal identity and society, and more, but that journey does not appear in the document and that made him wonder if he wanted to just withdraw from the academic process of defending it and completing his PhD. There were big feelings in the process and the product felt sort of less than. Yet the final product would be valued much more than the process in the academic world, in the outside world. So, if he didn’t defend and finish and in that sense not have a product would the process not matter?  And so often it just doesn’t. It doesn’t matter that you put in the effort to do that work – what matters if only if you have something to show. You will have the same knowledge and skills you had if you didn’t finish, yet if you did you would be valued more. If you didn't finish you certainly would be valued less than the person who had the final product. 

I keep getting interrupted while writing this. First on the 16^th by something else I just had to write and then twice today since the morning by practical things -- dealing with filing taxes in India and washing the lunch dishes. Hard to get back to the things I wanted to say, especially since there is a peculiar melancholy in my mind today. Another day perhaps. Today I am going to contemplate for a bit my state of mind that is trying to deal with the easing of restrictions. The government now says it is safe to do certain things from today, Friday June 19. Was it really less safe yesterday? What anxieties and sanitizing behaviours can I drop that are associated with lockdown mind? My head is still in it and I think letting it go will be a process for me. 

I do know that now I have to face the world with my patchy poorly clippered hair. I hope it grows out soon.