Brain-Fasting

I haven’t posted for a few days, because I’ve been fasting. No, not food-fasting. Brain-fasting.

First an apology to those of you who received the 12-13 post by an “Iron Filings” email as well as reading it here. The apology is not because you had to read it twice; Nina Morwell says that is okay. But I intended to send most of the emails by Blind Carbon, so that each would receive an individual copy rather than having to read all the other email addresses at the top. But it was late at night, at least for me, and I got the CC, regular carbon copy, box confused with the BCC box, and clicked the wrong one each time.

That’s an example of why I am brain-fasting. Every once in a while my brain, as well as my drain, gets clogged. I unclog by going for several days without thinking. About anything.

I listen to music. I don’t think about it; I just listen.

I look at the scenes around me. I don’t think about them, I just look. Winter is a great time for that, just looking. There is snow beyond the windows, and a tree with lights and ornaments in the living room. No thinking required.

I eat. Winter is a good time for that, too. Cookies. Meatloaf. Chili. Stew. No thinking, just the taste of comfort.

I watch TV, which requires no thinking at all.

I think I heard this story from Bob Hammel, the great Indiana sports writer: David Starr Jordan was president of Indiana University and also a great ichthyologist. [It’s called “ick” thyologist because fish are slimy.] He had a reputation for remembering names. If he met a freshman in the fall, he could still call that student by name in the spring. Leland Stanford hired him away from IU to be the first president of Stanford Univ. After he had been at Stanford for a while, he ran into an old colleague from IU. “Do you still remember the names of all the students?” the colleague asked him. “No,” said Jordan. “I’m at the stage of life where every time I remember a freshman, I forget a fish.”

I’m at that stage where I must brain-fast every once in a while, unclog. Winter is a good time for brain-fasting.

May the pleasures of an empty winter brain be yours,
JRMcF