Chattering Deadbeat Monkey Brains

Maria de Madeiros playing Anais Nin in Henry and June.

Dreams are necessary to life.
-ANAIS NIN

Sometimes my head gets real full. I go blindly from one activity to another, never stopping for a break, a breath of fresh air. Filling my mind and my body with constant thoughts, to do lists, mental notes - frantically hurrying from errand to appointment to work and back home again. Chopping dinner, clacking away at my computers, paying bills, returning phone calls, trying to make sense when I talk, choosing which lettuce to buy, carefully composing emails, trying desperately to stay on top of this quickly sinking ship. Life becomes an endless stream of noises: ringing alarm clocks, telephones, beeping microwaves, whistling tea kettles, computer error sounds, the car radio, the ipod, the tube, car honks, sloooowly ticking clocks and the non-stop caffeine-fueled chattering inner dialogue going on in my head all day long. And through it all, this blur, this whirl of life and constant motion - what I miss most is the emptiness. The down time, the moments when I have nothing to do and nowhere to go and nothing to concentrate on. Those moments are so rare these days.

I can't play bridge. I don't play tennis. All those things that people learn, and I admire, there hasn't seemed time for. But what there is time for is looking out the window.
- ALICE MUNRO

I recently realized that I have spent most of my life alone. Probably a much higher percentage than most "normal" people who are quite content to fill their chattering monkey brains with work, home and tv without longing for dead time. The hours upon hours I have spent alone walking, soaking up sun, thinking, spacing out, reading, staring into space, doodling, planning, daydreaming. This is time I depend on, time I subsist on. Time that feeds my daily life and inspires my dreams.

I have dreamed in my life, dreams that have stayed with me ever after, and changed my ideas; they have gone through and through me, like wine through water, and altered the color of my mind.
-EMILY BRONTE

But this stupid frenetic work world we live in. These ridiculous busy lives we lead, these jobs that take over our lives and our paranoid fear of being alone or inactive. Ridiculous. It is the empty spaces that I crave. Writer Alice Munro once said that her most productive, inspiring time of day was drinking coffee in the morning and staring out the window. Damn! It has been months since I stared out the window...well, there were those 5 minutes one week ago while I was cramming cereal my gullet, rushing off to work late, as usual.

I am now quite cured of seeking pleasure in society, be it country or town. A sensible man ought to find sufficient company in himself.
-EMILY BRONTE

More than anything these days, I relish the emptiness. The time alone in my bath to empty my brain and release my thoughts, those few moments in dance class when I am concentrating so hard on getting the right steps that my brain unplugs. Watching the squirrel in the backyard tunnel through the snow and munch on the left overs beneath the bird feeder. Soaking up the sun in the brightest spot at work, getting odd stares from office workers while I glue myself to the warm window in the hall by the bathroom. Those empty moments are like gold to me. the moments in between, the moments my creative brain is most active.

A leaf fluttered in through the window this morning, as if supported by the rays of the sun, a bird settled on the fire escape, joy in the task of coffee, joy accompanied me as I walked.
-ANAIS NIN

My old hippy yoga teacher used to tell us to quiet our chattering monkey brains. But when you are always flying from one thing to another, how do you make your inner monkey SHUT the hell UP? Let's see what some other deadbeat loner heroes, internal-minded artistic crazy types have to say about this chattering monkey mess:

DBC7 * Tortured Artists 101 * Wanna learn how to be a whacko, loner tortured artist? Sure, we all do? Here are some easy steps to help you along your way to suicide, the nut house or a slow anonymous death! And to top this exercise off, a GNR tortured artist montage to see what you've learned!

Judy Davis playing George Sand in Impromptu.