Conscious Minute #1

Fresh St(art)

Yesterday, I walked to a nearby exercise park, eager to clear my Zoom-addled head with a two-mile run. I joined the few joggers already circling the track, injecting myself into a gap, trying not to crowd anyone. Careening around a bend, I stutter-stepped, encountering a person running the opposite way around the oval. The start and finish lines of the track are set so runners move counter-clockwise; this rogue runner ran clockwise, which meant everyone else had to step out of her way as we looped the track. Each time I passed her, I found my annoyance rising, at her and other things. My new Nike sneakers felt leaden. I smelled a nearby garbage truck’s stench. My apartment keys jabbed at my hip through a zippered pocket. Even the uneven alignment of the “Start” line painted on the Astroturf bugged me each time my shoe stepped on it; I had never noticed its lopsidedness before. As I orbited the track, instead of feeling lighter and more energized, I felt resistant.

Then, a seagull squawked loudly above me. (Yes, a seagull, in Manhattan.) I realized, Wait. I feel a breeze. It’s 75 degrees (instead of our usual August steamy 90 degrees). I’m outside instead of cooped up in my tiny apartment. I’m around a bunch of people trying to better themselves.

On my next loop around the track, as my foot stepped on the misaligned letters that spelled “Start,” I realized that the three letters on the right side spelled “Art.”

I smiled, and recalibrated.

As we step into this new week embarking on new (and possibly scary) journeys, let’s notice if we feel resistance. Often, resistance is fear. Of course, what we are navigating right now feels scary, and our instinct might be to pull away from it, to resist it. My boxing trainer, Lou, teaches that good fighters don’t lean away from a fight. Rather, they lean into the direction of the fight so they can deflect punches, control them, and diffuse their impact.

This week, let’s acknowledge the fact that we are learning a new language — of unfamiliar technology, new classes or work projects, communicating through a screen, speaking with people we may never have spoken to or with before. Let’s recognize if we naturally try to protect ourselves through initial resistance. If so, let’s pause and adjust. Let’s lean into what feels scary or intimidating. Let’s re-direct energy that is misunderstood as negative into something profound and positive.

I resolve that the next three months of my life, including teaching online at Brooklyn Law School, are going to be art. Art is creativity, inspiration, adaptation, flexibility, open-mindedness, expression, authenticity, and inclusion.

Let’s embrace this new month, this new season, this new academic year, this new phase, to re-start. Let’s convert fear-fueled resistance into art.