Sunday, October 17, 2010

"Good" Boredom

“I’m bored” said Peter, as he bounced down on the bed beside me, disturbing my nap.


Uh oh. At that point, we were only 2 hours into our ~1,440 hour house sitting assignment. We had assured ourselves before accepting this assignment of caring for a house in the middle of nowhere that we would find plenty to keep us occupied. We loaded up on books, movies, craft projects, Spanish assignments and exercise goals. And here he was, on day one, hour two, complaining about boredom.


I guess I could understand his sentiment, a little bit. The house was eerily quiet, with the home owners having left that day. We had just had two full days with them in their beautiful home – they showed us the area and introduced us around. A pair of fellow travelers, there was much to talk about and many stories shared. We were excited that this “job” had introduced us to two new good friends, and we were sad to see them go.


But still, a declaration of boredom only 2 hours in was concerning! Until I looked over, and saw that Pete said it with a huge smile on his face.


“It’s a good boredom. I have lots to do, but nothing that has to be done.” That’s better.


That is precisely the point of our stay here. After more than a year of running around from place to place and activity to activity, we now have 2 full months to sit still and enjoy ourselves and our surroundings, while also taking some time to “plan” (hate that word) for our future. We have no obligations beyond caring for the home – we don’t need to be anywhere specific at anytime. And our first week here has encompassed just the pure enjoyment of these facts (we’ll worry about the “pl@%ning” later).


We’ve had long walks in the pristine fresh air with nothing but the sound of the creek beside us. We’ve spent hours rotating between reading, writing, and watching the leaves fall outside. I’ve baked buns. We’ve watched the entire seventh season of Entourage. I’ve fed my new addiction of making jewelry (and created a forum to sell it! Check it out!)


Most enjoyably, we’ve gotten to do our number one favourite thing of kayaking on nearby Upper Arrow Lake. We spent one beautiful morning on the water with the entire lake to ourselves. For both of us, this is the definition of a small piece of “heaven”, and is one thing we hope to do quite regularly while we are here.




And so while officially we have nothing we “need” to do, we have a long list of everything we “want” to do. This might be boring to you as a reader, but to us, the good boredom is the best part.

3 comments:

  1. please refer to the comment I posted ;)
    xoxo p

    ReplyDelete
  2. oops....I mean the LASt comment I posted :D

    ReplyDelete
  3. Sounds to me like you are getting in good practice for the pace on Roatan.

    See You Soon,
    Genny aka roatanvortex

    ReplyDelete