I have been trying to meditate for years now, but I’ve been practicing especially diligently the past few months. When I say “practicing,” I mean trying to find a place that is quiet, where my cats can’t bug me, where I’m not distracted by all of the housework or checkbook balancing I should be doing, and, most importantly, where no one else can see me. I know you don’t normally need all of these things to meditate. I know I’m just using them as excuses because the idea of meditation, actively thinking about nothing, is just too overwhelming for me. I don’t know how to think of nothing. Seriously.

I’ve had friends, mostly men, give me advice that goes something like this, “I don’t know, I guess you just need to not think about it so much.” Like that’s even fucking possible. It makes me crazy. (It’s a little like being told to “lighten up” in that it has the exact opposite effect it’s meant to.) My mind races. All the time. At any given moment, I’m thinking of at least three different things. I think the only time I’m not simultaneously working out some boy problem, noticing how big my butt has gotten, and wondering what kind of car I’d buy if I could afford it is when I’m asleep. And fat lot of good that does me.

I got a suggestion from a sort of guru not long ago that my problem is that I’m trying to narrow my thinking, when I should be expanding it. In trying to think of nothing, I’m thinking, “OK, think of nothing, think of blackness, think of an open sky. No wait, the sky is something. So is blackness. Damnit.” And before you know it, I’m thinking and judging and totally outside of anything resembling meditation. This guru suggested instead of trying not to think of anything, I should open up my seventh chakra to ALL thoughts, all consciousness. (Feel free to judge here, people.) So that’s what I’ve been doing lately, and it’s almost working.

Then today, I was writing some copy and struggling for a synonym to “vessel” while staring out the window at the traffic on I-90. Watching the cars go by is mesmerizing. At one point, I realized I hadn’t had a thought in about 45 seconds. Not one.

It’s too bad that my meditation place turns out to also be the place I work. Where they pay me to have thoughts. As many thoughts as possible, in fact.

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