A Curious Moment of Curiosities

This happened a week or two ago; I’m still trying to Learn the Lesson.

I’m working through the year-long Grown-Up Gap Year (GUGY) with Tiffany Han. The first month, the focus was Clearing. Now, we’re almost through with the second month: Curiosity.

I was struggling with Curiosity. Tiffany’s encouraged us to really explore what makes us curious this month — to ask ourselves questions, formulate theories, and test things out in little experiments.

What would happen if I let myself wake up naturally, instead of with an alarm?

What would happen if I take Instagram off of my phone for a week?

How hard would it be to not buy anything (except necessities) this month?

What would I create if I opened my notebook and just … started writing/drawing/cutting/gluing?

As someone with ADHD, there’s a huge fear factor to this approach. If I truly follow my curiosity throughout the day, when will I do my actual, bill-paying job? Will I come out at the end of the month completely discombobulated, a messy, disorganized shell of my formerly (mostly) composed self, surrounded by half-finished curiosity projects, my fingers fused together with glitter and glue-stick residue?

What about the rest of my Life?

Who will do the dishes?

Who will feed the cats? Oh no. What if, while I’m so busy with this hippy-dippy curiosity stuff, I don’t notice when one of the cats suddenly starts limping, or stops pooping, or scratches all of the hair off of her ears...

Oh my God, my cats are going to die.

Curiosity will literally kill the cat.

(Yes. This is the sort of trainwreck of thought that crosses my brain-place on a daily basis. Especially when I’m challenged to — gasp! — play around with frivolous, amorphous ideas like “curiosity.”)

Luckily, Tiffany comes prepared. She schedules “office hours” twice a month for people like me who have trouble getting into the groove of the challenge. I signed up for the next session, which was — thankfully — that week. My main question was: How do I incorporate curiosity into the work day? Because if I were to truly follow every curious thought that occurs to me throughout the day, I’d never get anything done. Among other things, she encouraged me to keep a notebook next to me during the work day, so I could jot down things that popped into my head and then get back to doing that Thing I Have To Do To Pay Doze Billz.

The next day, resolve strengthened, I walked over to my bookcase, to peruse the stack of a dozen or so blank notebooks I keep there. I rifled through them, finally settling on a slender spiral-bound notebook with a bright daisy pattern on the cover.

A seemingly random journal selection, for my Curiosities list.

I opened it, expecting a blank page. Instead, I was greeted with a list.

Here’s where things start to get synchronicity-full, y’all. (And no, the word I’m looking for here is definitely not “synchronous.” That’s a totally different word-vibe.)

Dang it! I thought. This is supposed to be my refreshingly blank clean-slate notebook for my curiositiiiiiiiiiiies! Now I’d have to spend time reading over the defiled pages, and inevitably ripping them out to get the fresh start I so desired.

And then I started reading.

Oh, friends.

The list was old — at least six years old, because I’d started it when I rebranded my blog as “Take On E.” It was also when I’d decided to jot down a list of things that it might be cool to write about, or maybe even podcast or make videos about (if I ever got around to podcasting or video-ing.)

Dry needling. ASMR. DIY dry shampoo.

Pottery classes. Anti-inflammatory foods. How the moon affects us.

The benefits of therapy. Beef Bourguignon and other complicated recipes. Resilience - nature or nurture?

Favorite smoothie add-ins. Skydiving. Pairing wine with food.

Friends. Friends. Do you see what I’d stumbled upon?

It was a list of curiosities.

A six-year-old list of curiosities that I’d written at the last time I can recall my curiosity being nourished. I’d just rebranded. I was ready to “take on” my fears and insecurities and write about them. What would I take on? Who knew? The Possibilities jar was overflowing, and listing some felt SO good.

A list of curiosities.

I had to put the notebook down for a moment. It was too right. Too well-timed. Too apropos of everything.

I mean, come on — what are the odds? What tiny little moments and decisions had to align for me to find this notebook again, at this exact time, when Curiosity was once again at the forefront of my mind?

I’d only joined the GUGY program because a few months prior I’d re-subscribed to Tiffany’s podcast after a long hiatus. What compelled me to seek out her podcast after so long? What compelled me to join GUGY? What compelled me to submit a Curiosity question to her office hours session? What compelled her to advise me to keep a notebook? What compelled me to latch onto that idea, out of all the ideas that she suggested that day? What compelled me to choose that notebook out of the stack?

There is something here. I feel it. It’s as if I have a mouthful of something delicious and satisfying and life-affirmingly good, and no matter how much I chew, no matter how much I concentrate on the flavors and the mouthfeel and the smells and the textures, I still can’t pinpoint the ingredients. I still don’t know what exactly I’m eating.

But it tastes good, and I think I’m supposed to eat more of it. I think I’m supposed to take a second, third, fourth helping.

Maybe, for now, I don’t need to know the ingredients. I don’t need to worry about knowing what’s in it so I know how to recreate it in my own kitchen. Maybe, for now, enjoying it is the job. Enjoying it is the goal. Enjoying it is the curiosity.