Prompt 268. In Praise of Boredom

& the musician Kimbra on the power of silence

Daniel Hudson Burnham, Bay of Tunis Through Porthole of Steamship (1896)

Hi friend,

“It’s from boredom that the best ideas spring into being,” my mother used to tell us when we were young. It was true, though “best” may be a bit of a stretch to describe some of the things my brother and I came up with. Sometimes boredom spurred us into wild flights of imagination, like composing and performing a play for our friends and neighbors. Other times, in want of something to do, we dove into pure mischief, like the time we used Swiss army knives to carve our initials into the windowsills all around the house.

But what I do know is that as a young person, I had the opportunity to be bored much more often than I do now. I was regularly enveloped by expansive pockets of stillness and silence, and in those moments, I escaped into imaginatively rich landscapes. I had a closet in my bedroom—it was actually the understairs of the attic—that was the perfect nook, so tiny and dark with no windows. I adorned the walls and ceiling with glow-in-the-dark stars, and I’d crawl into it with my comforter and a little light to draw or read or daydream about what I wanted to be when I grew up. It was in that stillness and silence that I first discovered and began to cultivate my interior life.

Recently, I’ve been thinking about how relentlessly busy we are. Between emails, texts, phone calls, and my own inner dialogue, which ranges from worries about my health to what’s happening in the news, the noise never quite stops. But there were moments in the past where the din disappeared—for example, the first time I got sick, the early days of the pandemic, and when I learned of my leukemia recurrence. Interestingly, those quiet moments set off huge creative growth spurts in me. I would not have written my column, gone on my solo cross-country road trip, or written my memoir if my first diagnosis had not forced me into stillness. Without the pandemic, I would not have started the Isolation Journals. Had I not relapsed, I can’t imagine that I would have taken up painting. The times when I’ve been forced to lie fallow have spurred me toward the most fertile creative periods of my life.

So as an antidote to the torrential busyness, I’ve been trying to cultivate stillness and quiet each morning. I wake up well before the sun rises, make my coffee, gather some wood, and build a fire. I inevitably drip the coffee all over my sweater, then sit beside the fire and drink what’s left of it. I read and write in my journal, then feed and walk the dogs. All this time, I resist the urge to open my computer, to start firing off emails, to attack my to-do list. I’ve even stopped listening to music or podcasts. These hours feel mystical and sacred, and I try to meet the stillness with my undivided attention, to listen for what arises in the silence.

This brings me to today’s guest essay and prompt by the musician and writer

Kimbra

, whom I had the good fortune to meet and share a meal with just a few weeks ago. In it, she tells the story of how earlier this year, after more than a decade of the relentless grind of the music business, she had a moment of reckoning—and the answer that came to her was silence. It’s a stunning piece that explores how rich and expansive silence can be—how it can hold us, nurture us, and connect us. To learn about the strange and beautiful and very public way she brought silence into being, read on.

Sending love,

Suleika

Some Items of Note—

• In need of a little pick-me-up? Every Friday, we send up our small joys in a chorus of collective gratitude—such a gorgeous song. Mine involved a murder mystery birthday party and the utter joy of imaginative escape. To be buoyed by the joys of others and to add yours too, click here!

• We’ve scheduled our next meeting of the Hatch, our virtual creative hour for paid subscribers. It’s the third Sunday of the month—so that’s Sunday, November 19, from 1-2 pm ET. Holly will be hosting this month, and she’ll share what she considers to be the perfect micro-story and why. Mark your calendar here!

via Getty/Dan Arnold

Prompt 268. Silence by Kimbra

The shows were going great but some nights I felt empty. I was in total control yet I still felt like a monkey, stepping on stage and doing the same tricks I knew so well. The fans were amazing, the shows were selling successfully, but I knew what would happen when I stopped singing. The audience would clap. I would smile. The next song would start. I would move. They would look. We would do what we’ve always done. Audience and Performer. Bow and stand. I was tired. 

My show at the Sydney Opera House was fast approaching, and people kept asking me if I was excited. I would, of course, smile and say, “Yes.” But deep down, in that inner place of knowing, there was a resounding “no.” It was at this exact moment I knew something had to change. Music was my great joy, my portal into the sacred. I could not let the demands of the music industry rob me of my gift and my service or let burnout rob me of my greatest joy. I lifted my eyes and asked the skies, What would make me excited to play this show? An interesting word emerged: silence. 

I imagined the Sydney Opera House humming with the final vibrations of a song, the bass melting into the distance and the harrowing, serious arrival of silence. That certainty and firm, loving absence that silence holds you in. I imagined listening to the builders who had laid every brick. That thick hum of human presence. That rich waiting. I called my band and told them of my plan. We created drones and sine waves to trigger in between songs and sketched out a new lighting concept that would help create an atmosphere of “holding.”

The new show came together just in time. The night arrived, the lights went down. I walked onto the stage brave but prepared to flop. I issued an invitation to the audience: not only to withdraw their phones but also their applause between songs. We played our first, and as we finished, the sounds morphed into a long drone, like a meditation gong resonating through the house. Slowly the sounds disappeared. It was eerie. Now and then, a clap would dribble through the blanket of silence. Awkward and clumsy, people would giggle, then settle into the stillness once more.

We pushed through the initial discomfort of such raw togetherness, until that awkwardness subsided, and the room became caring. Our curiosities swayed to one another. The artist was not creating the show; she was facilitating its arrival. We settled into our new role as one living organism. We felt held. We were resting together. All sound fell away, and together a sea of 2,000 people bathed in an iridescent blue light came to complete stillness for six whole breaths after every song.

The applause at the end of the show was rapturous and glorious and so meaningful. It was cathartic for the audience, and it also fed me in new ways. I felt seen and known. I had shared my inner chaos and longing with these strangers. They had trusted me. We had held hands through the strange terrain, and now the rain was falling in the desert, and we were dancing under it together, celebrating the quenching of our thirst for deeper presence with one another.

Your prompt for the week:

Explore silence. Maybe set a timer for five minutes, or just sit in it for six long breaths. Do you resist it? Do you expand into it? Write about what happens in the waiting.

If you’d like, you can post your response to today’s prompt in the comments section, in our Facebook group, or on Instagram by tagging @theisolationjournals. As a reminder, we love seeing your work inspired by the Isolation Journals but request no promotion of outside projects to preserve this as a community space.

Today’s Contributor—

Kimbra is a New Zealand-born writer, singer, songwriter, producer, musician, and host of the podcast Playing with Fire. A two-time Grammy winner, she released her fourth studio album, A Reckoning, earlier this year. To hear her wax poetic on the transcendent, share secret whimsical fictions, and filter out anything of worth that comes to mind, sign up for her newsletter,

Kimbra

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For more paid subscriber benefits, see—

• To Betray or Not to Betray, an installment of my advice column Dear Susu, where I tackle a reader’s question about the thorny nature of writing about others and share my good-faith protocol for telling stories from your side of the door

• Letters from Love, a video replay of our workshop with the beloved author and speaker Elizabeth Gilbert, where she shares a transformative spiritual practice for combating self-criticism and tapping into an ocean of unconditional love

• On Finding Your Voice, a video replay of my Studio Visit with the writer Ashley C. Ford, where we talked about dreaming big, finding meaningful work, and the question to ask when you’re at a crossroads