Down Time versus Down Moods

Ovidia--every other Tuesday

Down time and down moods look very similar from the outside--low productivity, high junk food intake--but feel very different and leave me in a very different place.

I’m currently in a down space—waiting for copy edits on Tembusu and finding it hard to fix on the next book. I have several ideas in the stable longing to be saddled up, but this is the first time in thirteen years I don’t have a contract and deadline hounding me... I'd been looking forward to this time, but instead of feeling gloriously free I'd been feeling kind of lost until I got myself back to my favourite self-indulgent transitional space: Crimson...

The Crimson restaurant that looks down into the Crimson Wetlands at the Mandai Bird Paradise. Yes, it's expensive with posh restaurant prices (I think a set meal is like $35--I had the a la carte laksa) and that's on top of the park entry of $22 for senior citizens.

But it's also become my special get away space because there's no time limit on sitting and you can sit there all day with a glass of wine (which they sell by the glass--I had sparkling water and two coffees) and there's air conditioning and clean toilets and after walking around in the heat getting up close to the birds it's very nice to sit down and watch them flying around at eye level!

This is one of my favourite parks because of the pink flamingos, scarlet ibises and roseate spoonbills. Not just for their lovely colours but for the way they spend most of their time picking their way through the water, digging into the muck for bugs--then suddenly take off into glorious swooping flights.

Kind of like how we spend so much of our time nit-picking over tells and plot points till suddenly something makes it all lift off.

That's how it kind of felt for me being there, once I gave myself permission to take time off just to recharge. Without permission, rest feels too close to laziness to relax into. With permission, it becomes maintenance.

And I strongly recommend to everyone who's made it this far into the year: give yourself permission to slow down, rest and feel where you are in your body and your space at the moment... which will give your body, mind and soul a chance to work out (consciously or not) your directions in the year to come.

This was my laksa lunch, by the way--quite delicious.

And these were the friends who left their tree and came as close as they could to inspect it through the glass window--

No, I didn't share. But then when I was walking around outside they didn't share their fruit with me either!

I haven't just been goofing off--I've taken care of quarterly chores like cleaning the gunk out of the turtle pond filter (too disgusting to photograph, but oddly satisfying to get really filthy mucking it all out!) but for me, nothing feels as good as taking some time out to sit with the birds.

Watching the predators show after--eagles, vultures and owls--I found myself wondering how long it would take them to render a body unrecognisable, and it felt so good to be thinking murderous thoughts again!

So--if you find yourself feeling down, disconnected or directionless, please don't worry. You might just be tired. Suddenly getting free time at the end of the year can be disorientating if you're used to being chained to a system and routines and deadlines. But it's also a chance to try flying--

Choose the downtime activity/ non-activity that restores you most and set aside the guilt for now.

Happy recharging everyone!