By Jillian Conrad
Do we ever actually stop and listen to our thoughts or do we only talk to them? How do we find these moments and pause the rush of personal experience?
When I am all alone, I feel I know myself best. Sitting in my driver’s seat, I rummage through the door; I find greased coins, losing lottery tickets, and crinkled receipts. I am distracted, yet entirely present. The wind swells and whistles as it seeps through the car’s frame. When the tank is filled, I disregard it and walk among the other pumps, listening closely. Only for a second can I hear my thoughts; they are immediately lost to the marbled gleam of oil and the whirring of wrappers scattered under posts. In these moments, I cannot help but wonder if there is something in me hoping I will stay to watch, listen, and learn.
Propped above the tanks, a sign reads, “Buy the Carton”. For a moment, I imagine milk, a tall glass waiting in a kitchen I have yet to occupy. On the drive home, I laughed at myself, realizing that the cartons weren’t referring to milk at all, but gasoline. This moment serves as a reminder that my time alone does not have to be profound, and can consist of absurdity, delays, or entire gaps of nothing.
It is only in fleeting moments that I become aware of how I occupy the world at large. Even so, the places I go often, and where I recognize myself most in, are not always obvious or exciting. I can feel my presence in these places as an extension of myself; I use them as reminders that there is always more to discover. They might not look the same to all of us, but they are all passages we stumble upon alongside one another.
I often think back to a trip I took with my family in elementary school. After two flight delays at the Atlanta Airport, we found ourselves in an Uber paid for by two businessmen my parents had met at baggage claim. Of that trip, I particularly recall pretending to be asleep on the way to the hotel, while murmurs of Spanish music and radio broadcasts spilled through the speakers. I was ten years old when I first learned the sound and rhythm of waiting to feel.
Recently, I was reminded of the ice cream shop where I worked in high school. Closing on winter nights felt desolate, yet comforting. The slow hum of the walk-in freezer radiated and surfaced every so often, in concert with the repeating loops of iHeart Radio music, songs I knew word for word. I think back to the barbershop next door, and its complaints about our melted trails of ice cream which now lie frozen. Before locking up, I’d punch in the alarm code, only to realize I’d entered the a.m. code instead of the p.m. one. Were my thoughts stuck in another season?
Now, in my apartment, the laundry room serves as its own threshold. In here, my thoughts are suspended between doing, watching and being. Though the space is communal, I rarely seem to pass by anyone; time folds into itself, and the space is all mine. The door stays cracked beside the washer, like an invitation that has been opened, but not yet read. I pace, my slippers shuffling against the vinyl; I encounter peculiar thoughts like — would a glass of milk chill more quickly in the fridge or here beside the washer, near exposed vents and frigid exits?
In these liminal spaces, I am not seeking out distraction or spectacle. Instead, I am seeking myself, and in that there is always something to offer.
Jillian Conrad is a third-year student majoring in professional and public writing. In her free time, you can find Jill adventuring, listening to music, or watching a new movie.