This week on the leisure diaries, Erica keeps time.
Jason,
This week I’ve been listening to an audio project that touches on the themes we cover here in our leisure diaries. Becca Rashid and Ian Bogost host How To Keep Time (The Altantic), a podcast interested in our often fraught relationship to our most finite resource. The episodes cover quite a bit of ground — from the internalized pressure we feel to be constantly productive and the amount of cultural importance we attribute to staying busy, to how time slows down the closer you get to a black hole in outer space.
Naturally, the episode titled "How to Rest” is right exactly in my Q zone. They speak with author Alex Soojung-Kim Pang (Work Less, Do More; Rest) about the relationship between rest and productivity, and encourage the listener to expand the definition of rest beyond sleep and relaxing “self care” practices. Active rest can (and should!) include hobbies, socializing, playing the dozens, or anything else that we do without a productive goal in mind. For me, this is the thread that connects our work to theirs, as we continue to write about how we choose to spend our leisure time. Having fun is restorative! But I guess “Active Rest Diaries” doesn’t have quite the same ring to it.
The notion of active rest is also central to what Julie Cameron calls “The Artist Date,” which is a solo activity intended to nourish and restore creativity. If this sounds broad to you, that’s by design. Cameron writes that anything can fill that well, as long as you find it inspiring. With that spirit in mind, I’m planning a trip to The Met this weekend to see The Harlem Renaissance and Transatlantic Modernism. The exhibit features works by Black American artists created during the Great Migration alongside depictions of black subjects painted by their European counterparts at the time. The artists range from William H Johnson and Augusta Savage to Matisse and Picasso. It sounds sounds ambitious, but I’m looking forward to seeing how it all comes together.
One quick music recommendation before I let you go — Brittany Howard’s newest album What Now is fantastic. Like so many of my favorite artists, she’s a master of too many genres, blending rock, blues, and R&B without missing a beat. There are songs perfect for Sunday morning, that I want to fill every room of my home, and a few perfect for rocking a little air guitar.
And now I’ll take my active rest. We’ll talk next week.
In leisure,
Erica
