How to Sit Down—Kate Gaston

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How to Sit Down

After I sat down to write, but before I wrote this sentence, I got up four times. 

It all started with tea. There’s something about tea, isn’t there? How many great minds have been soothed and inspired by a timely cup of tea? By nature, I’m a coffee drinker, but for years I’ve been trying to convince myself to drink tea. Today proved no different. I brewed a mug and sat down to write. 

I opened my laptop and pulled up the article I’d been futzing with. I stared at all those not-quite-right words. I picked up my mug of tea and took a sip. Instantly, I was aware of two things. First, the tea was magma, destroying the epithelial layer of my tongue. Second, tea is for the birds. 

I got up, dumped my tea into the kitchen sink, and made myself a pot of coffee. I sat down. Took a sip of my coffee. I’m sure it tasted delicious but I couldn’t tell thanks to the tea. I opened my laptop again. After a few moments of pensive gazing out the window, I remembered the load of clothes I’d started this morning, now blithely mildewing in the washer. I closed my laptop. I lumped the wet clothes into the dryer, then I sat down. 

I opened my laptop again and stared intently at the words. Should it be a comma? No, semi-colon, I think. While I was making this critical punctuation decision, our dog—Ozymandias—began pacing the floor with that mild urgency which signifies a full bladder. I ignored her, but her pacing didn’t stop. Her little claws on the hardwood floor clicked back and forth, like tiny pickaxes, like dwarves delving too deeply into Khazad-Dum. I rose from the couch and marched her out the back door. 

Again, I sat down. I took a sip of my coffee, now lukewarm. I opened my laptop. No, I decided, it definitely needs to be a comma. By this point, the window of time I’d allotted for writing—previously a buxom, full-bodied hour—was now a wizened, shrunken thing. Closing my laptop, I gave a sigh. Somedays, this is what progress looks like. 

Recently, I watched live footage of astronauts on the International Space Station. There they were, doing the same mundane tasks I’m doing here on earth. One astronaut—with only a carabiner or two between her and certain, infinite, suffocating doom—worked at unscrewing some bolts on the exterior of the station. The job wasn’t hard. But with her tools floating around her face, not to mention those giant space gloves, the astronaut labored two hours on the chore. Did I begrudge the astronaut the time it took her to complete her job? No, I didn’t. Because she was in outer space. 

Doing creative work often feels like it occurs in a zero-gravity environment. My resolve, my time, and my words go floating around my head, making me clumsy at even the simplest task. If I could just get my hands on them, all would go smoothly. Much has been written on that wily devil, Resistance. If you haven’t yet read The War of Art by Steven Pressfield, go ahead and do it right now. I’ll wait. 

Resistance is that counterforce lying in wait for you at the beginning of every artistic endeavor you begin. It’s also waiting in the middle of your endeavor. And at every step until you finish. For me, resistance often masquerades as a perfectly legitimate use of time. On the other hand, resistance can also look like 38 minutes of uninterrupted cat videos. Resistance can smell like chocolate chip cookies. It can sound like eggs cracking, and scruffy British people baking. It is the itch in my fingertips as I scroll.