Coming Home: A Love Letter to Routine

"Rut" has always been one of those words that's made me bristle. It's sharp and puggish and starts with that guttural "rrr" that sounds like gearing up to bark. Rut. A groove. A demarcation. As if some line representing the adventures of life is progressing forward  nicely and when things get boring it digs out a little semi circle of dullness. A rut.  No one wants to feel like they are in a rut and certainly no one wants to hear that they are in one. 'Rut' is 'routine' with a lacquering of  judgement. But I would argue that rut - or lets us transition to routine - is an essential part to creative growth and personal progress.

Nothing but time. 

Routine allows us to build, rather than react. In adventurous moments - learning, playing, traveling - we are moving forward. It feels like a moving forward, doesn't it? Something is happening. As with every experience - we are gathering information. Each new experience, or repetition of a past experience, allows us to gathering information until the experience itself becomes routine. (Think about the first time grocery shopping for yourself, or driving a car, or travelling alone.) 

When a task is new, the most bare bones completion of it is usually done. The first time playing chess isn't about strategy, it's about learning how to play.  But, once acquiring is said and done, we are left to sit and think. Playing chess for the 1,000th time may feel (or look) boring but it's when strategy, planning, growth occurs. Learning new things may feel more exciting, but expanding on them takes repetition. 

After travelling for the past 6 weeks my body is in a tailspin. It has been an exciting journey and I now have all this delicious information from California, Hoop Path, Boston, and Hoop Fest just waiting in my mind. Though I am not quite through it yet - Florida travels are in less than two weeks, house sitting and house guests to follow - I am ebullient at the thought of my lovely little routine returning. It's only ever when I am bored as can be that I think "OH MY LORD I MUST DO SOMETHING WHAT ON EARTH CAN I DO." 

And that's when the new information comes swelling to the surface. The phrase "if you're bored than you're boring" is almost as bristling as "rut" because it is only during those phases when endless time feels stretched out in front of me that I feel like I can devote myself entriely to something new. Boredom is important. 

And now.
Time to practice.