Filling the Void by Janice Carter

Which void, you may well ask, for there are many.  Abysses. Chasms. Black Holes. Often, clothes dryers.  But the void I'm referring to are those empty moments of time when you are physically  (and mentally perhaps) doing nothing.  Absolutely nothing.  Riding on a bus.  Standing in a crowded subway car.  Waiting for a doctor appointment.  Or sitting in a classroom.
      As an elementary student, I would always try to get a desk in the row next to the windows.  I could stare out those windows any time I wanted.  Back then, it was called daydreaming and it was one of my favorite pastimes, especially during the daily arithmetic lesson.  Unfortunately, that habit, along with a particularly frightening teacher, led to a case of math phobia in high school.
     Several years later, when I was a teacher (not of mathematics you may be relieved to know) and spending many hours daily with thirty children and their needs and wants, then going home to two other children (my own), there were no time voids in my life.  Every nanosecond was accounted for, even those that hadn't yet happened.  Once I found myself pulling into the school parking lot without any memory of how I got there.  Apparently this is a real occurrence and many people experience it.  I learned about it in a book about the brain that I was reading to research memory improvement.  I can't recall the author, but I'm sure he or she is a neurologist.  What happens is that a part of the brain lapses into a kind of fugue state while you are performing an everyday activity - like driving a car.  In my case, this state was triggered by a mental debate over menu options for dinner that night. Automatically and without any work on my part, the more reliable part of my brain, in a desperate surge of self-preservation, took control to get me to my destination safely.
    After my retirement those time voids reappeared, giving me plenty of, well, time to indulge mentally.  Or not.  A few weeks ago I was returning home from a visit out of town, travelling by train so my brain didn't have to take charge of my trip.  At one point as I exited the washroom at the end of the car, I was struck by the image of many heads bent over the blue-white glow of electronic devices, passengers filling the voids their way.  The car was dead quiet. When I sat down, I wondered which was more surreal - the actual world around me or the scary one I'd been imagining in the dark forests outside the window.
     I know. I can hear you muttering that I must belong to that pre-tech generation - the one whose childhoods were enlivened by radio, record players and board games.  And I do!  But I also have a Kindle, an iPad and a cellphone (because my children only respond to text messages).  I may be inching my way along the learning curve of technology, but now I can FaceTime, Facebook, iMessage and Instagram with some dexterity.  Of course, there are many seniors far more adept.  I know because I bumped into one the other day.  She was standing in the nuts and dried fruit aisle of the health food store and scrolling through her iPhone - maybe for her shopping list.  I bumped into her because I'd been checking my list on the scrap of paper clutched in my hand.  In spite of my affection for the magic of Google and Two Dots, I can't risk injury to my knee replacements by peering at my cellphone while walking down the street.
      The point I'm trying to make is that these increasingly rare 'time voids' or empty spaces in our lives are important.  We can't slow down technology nor should we want to.  But we can moderate our use of its products, whether cellphones or cars, tablets or dishwashers, and benefit in small but important ways - get more exercise, connect face-to-face with friends or daydream.  Also, the time voids generated could be opportunities to simply give our minds a rest.  A few seconds of daily mental rejuvenation - daydreaming, meditation or cat-napping - can extend our expected life spans.  I'm certain I've read that somewhere.
    Come summer, my preferred mental time-filler involves sitting in an Adirondack chair at my cottage.
                                                       

I wish I could say this is my inspiration chair but really, it's my staring-blankly-at-the-water chair and I can sit in it for ages until a single thought might nudge me into the cottage to fix a snack or get a cold drink.  Occasionally, that thought might become a word followed by a phrase that could lead to a whole sentence.  If I'm lucky, there will be enough sentences to actually write something down, as I have today.  Wishing you many empty and relaxing moments!
       Care to share your favorite way to fill those 'time voids'?