productively unproductive

For the past two weeks, I’ve been feeling strange.I want to dip in and out of books instead of powering through them at my usual speed. I want to read about random topics—language adaptation or conscious parenting—for no real reason. I want to write without direction in my notebooks and look up odd words in the dictionary. I want to wander.And I feel guilty for it.The thing is, I want to be productive. I want to feel that I’m charging ahead on the various books that I’m writing. I want to be decisive, to tick things off lists, to achieve.And yet, this feeling lingers. The desire to go for long, meandering drives, or to walk in the park with my dog, to listen to the rustling of leaves overhead.If this were five years ago, I’d be thinking about resistance. I’d be worrying that I was putting off productivity because of fear and self-sabotage. But now that I’m a little older and a little wiser, I know that all I need is a little rest. It’s not that I need physical rest. It’s not that my mind is burnt out. I don’t want to sleep or lie on the sofa, watching reruns of Gilmore Girls. What I want is a rest—a respite—from routine and from structure. I want to play. I want to follow my curiosity. I want to listen to my intuition instead of my rational mind. I want just a little bit of freedom. I want to wander.So I’m letting myself. I’m letting my mind potter about for the next day or two. I know I’m not lazy. I know I’m not afraid, or sabotaging my work. I know it’s just a desire of the soul to do what it wants to do for a little while, and I’m going to let it.Because I know that giving myself this time and space—this emptiness—is the most productive thing I can do for my writing, I plan to be gloriously unproductive.