Work in Progress
The Wisdom of Rest
After finishing a long project, there’s always a feeling of elation. You’ve been working toward something for so long and finally it’s done. You’ve typed the end, run the race, given the performance. You have achieved your goal, whatever it might be, and you feel great.
If you’re lucky, that feeling lasts for a few days. But sooner or later it will fade.
And then what?
The temptation (for me, at least) is to immediately leap into the next thing—and sometimes that works. But quite often, it’s a better idea to take some time to rest. After a race, this is true for sure or you risk injury—but it’s also true after a long project like a novel. Taking that time to breathe, reassess, “fill the well” as Julia Cameron puts it.
The trouble is, when you’ve spent a year or more dedicated to a project or goal, rest feels like a punishment. I’m in that phase right now. The novel is done and out on submission. My big race was last weekend. I have things I should be doing—things I promised myself I’d get done after these projects were behind me—and even though they’re not the things I want to do, I’m doing them.
In fact, I have another novel that needs attention, but so far I’ve resisted digging into it even though I want to. But… would it really be a bad thing to dig in? What’s the harm in starting a new project right away?
It’s not harm, exactly. It’s more like the need for a buffer. Even though my previous novel is done (for now), I know my head is still in it. Rest creates space, almost like decluttering or leaving a field fallow so that it can replenish itself. The field might look barren but important work is being done beneath the surface.
It’s a bit like trusting the taper
Two to three weeks before a marathon (depending on how you like to do things), runners will taper. This means cutting down the amount you run, either gradually if you have three weeks, or more suddenly if you only have two. At first it’s a relief. Then you start to feel a little nervous. Shouldn’t I be doing more? Wouldn’t more be better? Am I losing all my fitness?
The answer is no, no, and no. The taper is when all that hard work gets baked in. By the time race day comes around, you are rested and ready.
It’s hard to trust the taper, but it’s a tried and true method that underscores the point: rest works. Rest is a key part of the process.
When rest becomes sloth
The danger for me is that once I’ve embraced rest, there’s a fair chance I will slide right into sloth and Just. Do. Nothing. A little bit of this is not a bad thing, but it can easily get out of hand. The less you do, the less you feel like doing. When the time comes to get started again, it’s hard to work up the motivation. Writing feels rusty. Running feels awful. Everything is painful.
But I always find starting is the hardest thing. Once I get a little momentum under my belt, the sloth dissipates and I sink back into my routine. Maybe I should set a date for when that needs to happen (ha!).
In the meantime, I leave you with Dr. Pickles, an excellent bookstore cat in Philadelphia who embraces the idea of rest (well, also sloth). It’s also a great bookstore if you’re ever in the city.