I had a lovely couple of days this week just chilling with my mum. No fuss, no nonsense, just endless chatting about nothing and everything. We don’t live a million miles away from each other, but COVID had put the mockers on me being allowed to drive the 2-hour trip to see my parents, so like millions of others have conducted our relationship via technology. But after one thing and another, she was finally able to visit, and I drove her back to ours to stay with us for a few days.
We didn’t do much. We didn’t need to. We just enjoyed the familiarity of each other – something we had both missed. It’s one thing chatting on the phone. It’s another thing to be able to talk face to face, to see each other’s expressions and read each other’s body language. And to do the one thing you never do on the phone - to sit in comfortable silence, do nothing and be satisfied with it. And when I dropped her off at the train station to go back home, I realised that it is the nothingness you do with someone that speaks louder than words can ever do. There are only a handful of people you can really do this with, and I am grateful my mum is one of them. She may be getting older, and I have to remember to walk a little slower and speak a little louder, but she is still the same person who patiently held me as a baby, guided my toddler grip as I jumped into puddles and soothed my brow when I was ill. And is one of the few people in the whole world I can sit and do nothing with. I am hoping we have a lot more days of sweet nothingness to catch up on.
I think we all forget how important doing ‘nothing’ can be. The Dutch have coined a phrase for perfecting this – ‘niksen’ – which is the art of embracing nothingness, deemed just as important for your mental health, as doing something. When I was a young teen, I have an overwhelming memory of my school holiday being filled with me, mainly sunbathing in the back garden, thinking and listening to the radio. I am sure I did other things like bike rides and meeting up with friends, and it may have only been one or two summers before the novelty of listening to those Radio One Roadshows and Gary Davies’ Bit in the Middle wore off - but it was the pure pleasure of lying there in the garden doing absolutely nothing I remember most. No deadlines. No hassle. No responsibility. Just drinking in the freedom, enjoying wasting my endless time doing nothing. And while I did nothing, I thought and slept and daydreamed. And then I hit adulthood and my world filled with Things To Do and I forgot how to do nothing without feeling guilty about it.
My sons are now in school holiday mode. They are of an age where, unless we are going out or they have plans, they can sleep all morning, waking only once their stomachs remind them it is lunchtime. Which becomes breakfast. Their die-hard habits of the summer hols past kick in. They saunter downstairs, grunt their hellos, ask ‘what’s for lunch?’ before scratching around in the pantry and fridge scooping up leftovers, scoffing down all manner of goodies as they make themselves something to eat. Once their appetites have been satisfied, they skulk back to their lairs or - if the weather is kind - flop onto a garden chair to chill. Sometimes they volunteer to take the dog out. Sometimes they gather their energy to go for a run or join me for swim at the beach. Sometimes they do the few chores they know they must. But mainly they do nothing. And as much as I am tempted to nag them into doing something ‘worthwhile’ or comment about wasting time - I remind myself how short those lazy teenage summers are, and how exquisite that feeling of turning over in bed in the morning with nothing to do actually is. And after the school year they have had, working their butts off academically as well as dealing with the added pressure of COVID restraints; I understand how important this downtime is to them. And while they have the luxury of time on their side, why not indulge them in the sheer pleasure of having nothing to do so they learn how to relax, think, daydream and embrace the concept of niksen?
They will have their fair share of somethings to do in the years ahead.
© The Real Tilly Fairfax
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