In Defense of Loitering
By Sarah Callender | September 7, 2023 |
I grew up in a small town that contained the following highlights: Blockbuster Video, Loard’s Ice Cream, Nation’s Hamburgers, and Safeway. A library, a drug store, as well as a bookstore and community center. A beautiful old movie theater with a domed, celestial ceiling and lumpy velvet seats that smelled weird. That was about it. As teenagers, unless we hopped in the car and headed west, we had to work hard to find local entertainment.
Therefore, on weekends, I often found myself hanging out with my best pals in the Safeway parking lot. Literally in the parking lot. To this day, I don’t know why this seemed like fun, this loitering. We must have been waiting for something to happen. Or maybe we weren’t waiting for something to happen. Maybe we were waiting for anything to happen.
I don’t remember being bored. I remember hanging out with my best pals–friends I still hold dear nearly forty years later. In the Safeway parking lot, free from eavesdropping parents and irritating siblings, we did the most low-tech of things: talked, laughed, and gossiped.
How dull our lives must have looked to others. Perhaps we looked suspicious too. After all, we were loitering. And as many a sign will remind us, loiterers are rarely a welcome sight. But the simplicity of that activity, the absence of technology, movies, music, and alcohol, allowed room for us to connect in meaningful ways. Even if it looked really boring.
This summer, during my break from teaching, my life must have looked just as boring. The day after school got out, I tackled the still-major revisions suggested by my editor. For the next two months, I revised and revised and revised, and when I wasn’t revising, I was thinking about the revisions, puzzling over how to pull off the changes my editor had suggested. And when I wasn’t revising or puzzling, I was quietly and privately panicking that I wasn’t going to be able to pull off the revisions my editor was expecting. That’s it. That was my summer. To a casual observer it would have been as exciting as watching four teenagers hang out in the Safeway parking lot.
Okay, sure, I did do a few other things this summer. I ate significant amounts of watermelon. I occasionally showered. Less occasionally, I did ten pushups. I stood in my back yard, watching my May/June mason bees and, later, my July/August leafcutter bees, laying eggs and building little capsules for their babies in their bee chalet. I lured crows into our backyard with stale crackers. I considered sorting and refolding the old sheets and towels in the linen closet. I ordered mattress protectors, surge protectors and daughter protectors, plus a ramen-in-the-microwave cooker for my sweetie who started college in August (two time zones away). I enjoyed walks to the neighborhood brewery for a cider with the husband and the dog. I caught up with dear, neglected friends. I went head-to-head with my dad on the daily Wordle.
But mostly I loitered in the Safeway parking lot of my story. Not actively loading items into my shopping cart. Not on a mission to find sales on Tony’s Chocolonely, Peet’s coffee, and those Juanita’s tortilla chips I love. Not knocking on watermelons to test for ripeness. Just tweaking and rearranging story pieces, clarifying character motives, killing darling-but-needless sentences and scenes, addressing the issues with the story’s timeline. I spent the summer connecting with my story, getting to know it in a deeper way.
And, my most exciting and surprising a-HA’s came when I didn’t even know I was thinking about my story, when I was, unbeknownst to me, letting my subconscious take the wheel. Good things happen in my subconscious brain when it’s parked in a parking lot … even and especially when it looks like nothing at all is taking place.
Stephen King said, “The unconscious mind writes poetry if it’s left alone.”
It’s the “left alone” part of this statement that I find most true. My ideas cannot be forced or strong-armed out into the world. My subconscious cannot and does not work under pressure or duress. It needs time to loiter. My subconscious also needs some peace and quiet if it’s going to write even a grocery list, much less a piece of poetry.
The problem: I don’t often leave my subconscious mind alone. I almost always walk the dog while listening to a novel, while calling a friend, while absorbing a teaching-related podcast. Airpods are not conducive to loitering. No mental, fiction-focused loitering takes places when I am creating lessons and grading student work. It definitely doesn’t happen whilst I am worrying my daughter will get roofied at a party. When I am trying to achieve Genius ranking on the NYT Spelling Bee. When I am checking the AQI, checking email, checking social media. Checking to see if my son, three time zones away and also in college, misses me and would like to call me. Checking airfare to see if we can afford to bring our college kids home for the holidays without selling our plasma or our wedding rings.
So how can I give my subconscious more peace and quiet? For starters I can walk the dog without my phone. While commuting, I can silence NPR or KEXP, or pause my current audiobook. I can get out of the habit of checking my email and social media and playing the Spelling Bee. None of that unnecessary silliness affords my subconscious the quiet to write poetry, make connections, or see patterns in plot or theme, ones I didn’t even realize existed.
My subconscious does its best work when it loiters, and it loiters while I am watching my bees, cutting watermelon, commuting in silence. It loiters when I am scooping measured coffee spoons into my coffee maker, waiting for my cinnamon raisin English muffin to pop from the toaster, arranging stale crackers on the deck railing for the crows.
And I want to be clear. Loitering doesn’t mean lazily waiting for inspiration to strike. It means we have cultivated enough stillness that, when and if inspiration knocks, we are home to open the door.
As always, I write this post to remind myself of what I often forget. Will you share your loitering-related experience and wisdom with the WU community?
How do you lull your subconscious mind into writing poetry, solving plot issues, puzzling over character motivations? Do you have any suggestions for increasing the mind-quiet in your busy schedule? Where do you enjoy loitering (either literally or metaphorically)? Do you wonder why the sign-maker in the “NO” photograph above included quotation marks?
Thanks, as always, for being part of this community! And as autumn creeps closer, may we all have many moments of productive loitering.
A Middle Grade novelist (and Middle School English teacher), Sarah Callender lives in Seattle with her family. Because Sarah dislikes cleaning anything that will just get messy again, she tidies the house and weeds the yard only when absolutely necessary. This allows her time to focus on her true–and somewhat fraught–passions: writing, Abe Lincoln, and Tony’s Chocolonely chocolate bars. Equally passionate about mental health advocacy, Sarah is a member of The Stability Network. Sarah’s first novel, LUCY IN BETWEEN, will be published by Margaret Ferguson Books/Holiday House in 2026.
[coffee]
Loitering is a good word for it. Loitering feels like no expectations, just existence in a chosen place.
I find doing something repetitive with my hands, that doesn’t take much focus but does take much time, allows my mind to be open to answers and inspiration. Sawing, filing and polishing metal, simple crocheting, and hand mending with needle and thread (now a popular craft based on a type of Japanese embroidery) are my current go-tos.
May we all find a way to loiter today : ).
Thanks for the reminder.
Beautiful, Ada. Yes, I absolutely agree with repetitive hand motions. I’m a knitter (a basic knitter … one-color mistake-filled sweaters, shawls, etc.) and my brain craves that quiet repetition. And it is just occurring to me that I haven’t knitted a thing in at least a year. No wonder my brain is breathless and cranky. Thank you for that reminder. And yes, no expectations with the loitering. That’s the key. Thank you for your comment!
I get my best writing ideas in the shower. Can’t take technology or even a book in there. Sometimes I take really long showers.
Yes! The problem with that (for me) is this: I was raised in California, and it was drilled into my head that I was not to take showers longer than three minutes. There are no droughts in Seattle (so far) but I still feel shower guilt. There needs to be a word for Shower Guilt … I bet the Germans have a word for that. They have the perfect words for everything!
It makes me wonder about swimmers … doing laps might be a good time for loitering? Kind of meditative and quietly rhythmic. Maybe I should take up swimming.
And please know, I am NOT shower-shaming you! Shower Guilt is my own weird issue.
Sarah, wonderful post. I was so happy to see your name pop up in the byline. I’ve always loved your sense of humor. And loitering is the appropriate word, so much better than goofing off, procrastinating, being lazy, etc. I’ve found that my subconscious will come to my rescue when I unhook myself from modern life and electronics. Anything having to do with water, such as swimming or taking a shower, will work. Driving without the radio on. Walking the dog without listening to music. Sitting on the porch watching the sunset. I just have to get out of my own way.
Oh yes! Lorraine, I was just musing/wondering about swimming laps. I am able to swim, though I’m not a good swimmer. But when I watch good swimmers doing laps, it seems like the most peaceful of pastimes, no friction whatsoever, just gliding and breathing and kicking and stroking. The perfect time for big thinking.
Thank you for the kind words. I love seeing your name pop up too!
Thank you for such an inspiring post. Times when I could be loitering, usually sitting on the patio just watching and listening, I’m so focused on my story, trying to force inspiration, that I’m crowding out the A-HA moments. Now, I know to take a deep breath and just enjoy the serenity while I can.
Hi Dawne. Yes, “trying to force inspiration” is exactly right. It’s fascinating how our brains (and our creativity) function, often doing the best work when we aren’t even trying. It’s quite frustrating really. Exciting, yes, and miraculous, but frustrating. And how do I KNOW when I need to muscle my way through a scene or when I just need to sit back and loiter? And what about the muses? It would be helpful if they were just a bit more reliable, consistent, and predictable … if they even exist at all! Don’t we writers all have such a weird job?!? Happy breathing, loitering, and writing to you!
Excellent post, and I agree with Ada – loitering is a good word for the being still and open that lead to insights. I stopped listening to music on walks years ago to increase my mind-quiet, which has helped immensely. Gardening, swimming, being in nature in any way – that’s when inspiration and ideas rise to the surface. Thanks for this, Sarah.
My two best ways are walking, especially where there are lots of trees (I call it meandering) … and doodling.
Also when I am supposedly meditating, I often stop to “just jot down a line” and end up writing a poem.
Veronica! Stopping to “just jot down a line” (and seeing where things go from there) is brilliant. I am going to share that with my 8th graders. Many will be too 8th grade-y to embrace the possibility of where just jotting down a line can carry them. Others though, will see the magic. Thank you SO much!
I admire your discipline, Alison. And I will channel you when I am tempted to listen to book or podcast or music on upcoming dog walks. It makes me wonder WHY my brain thinks it would rather listen to something rather than just notice what happens to be happening along the walk. There’s some addiction there for sure, at least for me; my brain must like that “quick hit” of something external more than what is actually good for it. Makes me sad actually, and it makes me want to be as mind-quiet as you are!
Thank you for the inspiration. As always, I learn and realize so many things from this WU community. Grateful!
I had the same summer! Same editor-suggested rearranging of a story that had become wired into my neuro-net. Purging that old story felt like an aggressive form of therapy and as I shed chunks, finding ways forward became the next big challenge. Loitering figures big into this for me. Loitering as in weeding the garden, picking tomatoes, looking for stones in the stream. Also, napping. Or rather, getting pulled out of a nap with the solution to a plot problem popping in my head. I had a friend who made a practice of doing nothing. I have since learned that this is a thing. Some folks call it benching (a in sitting on a bench doing nothing.) I have also discovered that my subconscious is as invested a iIam in telling good stories. I love this post. You have a gift, Sarah, for making me laugh and think at the same time!
Dear Susan … thank you for your words. There are so many verbs we need to add to our writer toolbox: “benching” is one of them. It seems like other cultures and countries are much better at guilt-free benching than many of us Americans. At the start of school, the grade grade had a fieldtrip to a little beach on Puget Sound. We were supposed to gather natural items and create a mandala. My self-appointed duty was to collect small, reddish-brownish-orangish stones that were no larger than an unshelled peanut. Then my group of 8th graders and I used the items we had collected to create a mandala. It was deeply peaceful and restorative. Maybe I will add “Mandala-ing” to our list of essential verbs?
Thanks, as always, for your beautiful words. :)
Hi Sarah:
My mentor, who was the head of the math department at Ohio State, often recited this chestnut from William James: “You learn to swim in the winter, and you learn to ski in the summer.” meaning–work hard at difficult problems that seem too difficult to solve, but then walk away and let your unconscious do its magic. Both are required–the honest labor and the “loitering.” One of my other professors talked about spending a year in Germany where classes began at 7 AM and went until noon, and then in the afternoon the professor and his students would take long walks through the woods, “Because the pace of walking is very similar to the pace of thought.”
As for your account of your childhood hometown, it brought to mind this opening to “The Road Goes On Forever” by Robert Earl Keen:
Sherry was a waitress at the only joint in town
She had a reputation as a girl who’d been around
Down Main Street after midnight with a brand new pack of cigs
A fresh one hangin’ from her lips, a beer between her legs
She’d ride down to the river and meet with all her friends
The road goes on forever and the party never ends
David, thank you. I am going to borrow (steal) that chestnut. I often wise I were the kind of teacher who frequently dispensed wise, memorable refrains that my students would remember for decades. I think the only thing they will remember is me repeating things like: “Stanford, Harvard, Princeton, Yale, and MIT are NOT the only good schools!” or, “No, you may NOT revise an essay on which you already earned a 97%!” and, “Does anyone know whose Invisalign this might be?”
I have never thought of the “pace” of a thought. It’s beautiful. And thank you for the Robert Earl Keen poetry.
Hi Sarah, bravo for letting the mind wander. Our minds need rest. They need to feel free to think about things other than laundry and taking out the garbage. As writers/mothers/spouses….there must be a time when the bees notice us and we notice them. (please come and help me rake up my crab apples that have fallen from the tree. There are bees everywhere!) Focus…our teachers of yore told us. This, before husband and children. Focus…things happen when other things are set aside. As always, your post is wonderful, Beth
Wow, Beth. I love this. There’s something about your repetition of “Focus …” that feels profound. If I imagine all the stupid things I focus on, and all the silly things society tells us we should focus on, it all just feels like roaring in my head. AND, the the subtle difference between noticing and focusing? Not so subtle at all when I think about it. Thank you. You’re so wise.
I cannot tell you how much I love this post, possibly my favorite WU ever and that is saying something. Not only great advice but beautifully written, a metaphor so deftly spun I surprised even as I saw it coming.
Loitering in the parking lot of our minds. For me it is shaving in the morning, a ritual so familiar that my mind roams, and also my morning commute. Try listening to a good craft book on audio—King’s is a good one—and when something hits, hit pause. Ideas flow.
One hidden part of your post is the importance of your editor’s suggestions, the prod. Nowadays I write on spec, it’s the freedom I need, so in the absence of an editor I simply ask, “What in this story will the reader not buy into?” That is where I have work to do.
And I ever remind myself, this is fun, like playing genius level Wordle and chess at the same time, in a parking lot.
Dear Benjamin. Thank you. And thank you for pointing out the editor’s prod. Because I have been working on this book for more than ten years, and because it has gone through so many iterations, audience shifts, etc. (and because the editor who acquired the book is so talented), I have been forced to see what happens when I loiter TOO carelessly in my manuscript. I allowed myself to be complacent and forgot to look (I also forgot HOW to look) at the manuscript with the fresh eyes of a new reader. So I guess the “good” kind of loitering requires a willingness to notice and be present so we don’t forget to remember to consider your brilliant question: “What in this story will the reader not by into?” Thank you!
Sarah, what a lovely post and reminder to letting our minds wander. Thank you. It’s been a playful summer for me–I’m singing more than writing, learning to play the recorder, going to the beach in the evenings to jump in the waves, collecting shells, making art, walking to church or the library. Reading lots. Freewriting in the morning. My husband is the gardener and I’m the harvester–cooking lots with the fresh produce. Although some of these things, esp. making music, requires intense focus and takes time away from writing, it also seems to be helping my writing. I’m not sure why or how. Maybe it has something to do with training the mind to be singularly focused. Which is the opposite of letting the mind wander, but in writing this response, it is my wandering mind that allowed me to see that perhaps one leads to the other and vice versa. Periods of intense focus followed by loitering.
But in all these things, technology takes a backseat. It’s only useful as a tool. I’m on the computer now and will have to resist the temptation to check various news sites. However, it’s past noon, and the kitties are begging me for a treat and the dog needs a walk so thank heaven for them. David’s teachers are spot on, esp. regarding the pace of walking matching the pace of thoughts. I discovered this because I’m biking more to be efficient but really, the gift is in taking the time. The journey itself. Thanks so much Sarah.
Your life is beautiful, Vijaya! And this entire comment is lush. I can practically smell the cherry tomatoes that (maybe?) your husband is growing.
Your point about periods of intense work, combined with time to loiter, is brilliant. And that’s the key, right? We can’t thrive or produce when we have one without the other. My son is a runner, and he’s good about taking “rest days,” in part because he has seen what happens when his teammates overtrain: injuries, burnout, and fatigue. And rest days allow him to really bust his buns on the other days. It shouldn’t surprise me that it’s the same with creative endeavors. The secret is balance: intense work and focus with periods of loitering. Thank you for clarifying this for me. And for helping me smell the produce in your garden. Happy harvesting to you and your family!
“My subconscious does its best work when it loiters.” YESSS. And in case you’re still wondering, swimming “laps” (for me, at the beach in salt water) is an amazing chance to loiter while my arms and (sometimes) legs are doing something else. Thank you for giving a name to this easily forgotten “skill!” Also I do wonder if today’s kids will have to learn a new way to access this underlying font of wisdom, since they seem to never be without some sort of background filler.
Yes! And thank you for mentioning the opportunities to loiter while swimming. As I’m not a swimmer, I wasn’t sure, but watching people do laps certainly seems and feels meditative. And I imagine the water provides something like a sensory deprivation tank.
I, like you, worry and wonder about today’s kids. If my son is watching a movie or sports on TV, I have to get him off his phone. That kid needs TWO sources of technology. It scares me. And I’m not much better (which also scares me). Thank you, dear Carol, for sharing here!
It was several time zones away, and maybe some years earlier, but I shared your loitering experience and remember it fondly. It was a drive-in restaurant, not a Safeway, but based on your description, it produced the same experience. Since I never thought about it, I had no idea I was loitering. And I would never have connected it to the mental stillness that frees the subconscious mind to produce poetry, but I’m so glad you did. Thank you.
Driving, for some reason, seems to produce ideas. So does showering. Maybe instead of completely blank, my mind needs some activity that doesn’t require much attention, just enough to stay on the road or not drop the soap for that poetry or whatever to pop out. (I do occasionally miss a turn or have to remind myself where to soap next.) Bee-watching and cracker-arranging sound like pretty good alternatives. But whatever it is that produces poetry is not accountable to clock or calendar. Not in this time zone anyway.
Dear Bob, I laughed out loud at your mention of dropping the soap and forgetting where to soap next. I know what you mean! I have emerged from the shower with only my shaved leg before. I’d like to believe I was distracted by mind-writing, but I think I was just tired.
I just reread your entire comment because it was so beautiful. Your talk of time zones (beautifully peppered through the comment), and your line, “whatever it is that produces poetry is not accountable to clock or calendar” is a bit of poetry all on its own. Thank you for being here and for sharing.
Because I work from home, I find myself playing chauffeur for carless friends and neighbors. Those hours I’m waiting (and waiting, and waiting) at the bank, store, and chiropractor, my imagination gets quite a workout. I invent backstories and dramas for various strangers, and learn a lot by listening and asking questions. A woman in line at the bank teller mentioned they bought 500 pounds of chocolate in advance of Halloween. Turns out she worked at the specialty chocolate shop down the strip mall; what they don’t sell for Halloween gets melted for other uses. So while I’m technically not “at work,” I feel like I’m working.
Dear Christine, yes! I was recently riding public transportation, and I was reminded of how much storytelling I do when I’m in the presence of strangers, especially those who appear to have lived lives so wonderfully and refreshingly different from mine. There’s something about the rhythm of (in this case) the machinery that moves (in my case) the light rail train, coupled with the quiet, repetitive, automated voice of the woman who announces, “You are on the 1-line train to Angle Lake. Next stop Beacon Hill, doors to my left (or right?)” that gives me space to notice and wonder about the beautiful, joyful, painful, hopeful lives of others.
Thank you for helping me remember the importance of musing. We must do the musing … instead of waiting for the muses to arrive.
Sarah, I do some dandy (and comfy) loitering on my living room couch that faces a deck-side water garden, where birds of all kinds come to plunge in and flit about on the plants in the half-barrels. I often bring a book there too, so I can loiter in a fictive world, and then watch the dancings and duckings of the birds, which often prompts a semi-hypnotic state that is fertile for thought growth.
Weirdly enough, cleaning around the house can do the same. And I’m a practitioner of the California 3-minute shower too, so I don’t loiter much in there.
Yes, Tom. You are no stranger to water-rationing. Have you figured out what word the wonderfully-creative and clever Germans have created for the emotion that is “guilt over using too much water”? If the word doesn’t currently exist, I think you might be the man for the job, https://german.stackexchange.com/questions/72632/what-is-a-german-word-to-describe-germans-ability-to-have-a-word-for-anything#:~:text=German%20is%20often%20described%20as,’%2C%20or%20’Torschlusspanik’.
Your entire comment, by the way, is so poetic and rhythmic–fertile too–that it makes me want to sit down and write. Dancings and ducklings? I love that. Thank you.
Yes, indeed. I usually listen to podcasts at the gym, and the day I forgot to take my phone and had to just do all my gym stuff in silence, I came up with the solution to a “stuck” point in my children’s verse novel. From now on, if I’m having trouble, I’ll lift weights and write in my head!
Yes, Sherryl! Why and how does that happen? It’s so magical. Your comment is going to turn me into a body-builder. ;) Thank you for sharing that personal example … it’s so validating and inspiring.
THIS: “… that we have cultivated enough stillness that, when and if inspiration knocks, we are home to open the door.”
OH. YES. Thank you!!
Thank YOU, Barbara. xo!
This is sure to be one of my all time favorites posts on WU as well. Too often I’m the evil step-mother of my Cinderella soul. We Westerners especially need friendly permission or even invitation for quiet contemplation–for what the mystics call “wasting time with God.” Thank you! After a year of trying to write on the road while living in a motorhome (ugh) and being available to help aging parents, I longed for the familiar trails of my home town. I was astounded at how rested and fresh my mind felt after just a week or so of walking without needing a map, or scheduling, and just gazing up at “my” trees and bit of sky.
Oh my gosh, I LOVE this: “I’m the evil step-mother of my Cinderella soul.” Brilliant. And yes, I can absolutely feel your relief and the deep exhalation once you were again under your bit of sky. Ahhh, indeed! Thank you, Donna, for your very generous words.
Great article. I love loitering. But, once I get out of bed I can’t seem to loiter. So what I do is take that extra half hour to lay there in bed, letting my mind do it’s thing. Frequently it hops to a story and gives me the answer I’ve been looking for. I allow for that half hour of just being, comfortably tucked in bed, alone to let what was bothering me with a story to pop out. It is my precious down time before all the craziness begins. Surprisingly, what pops into my brain stays there until I can get to the computer and get to work. In fact, my brain mulls over what it gave me off and on while I’m doing up dishes, sweeping the floor, and other mundane things. It’s fun to be that character and living her mundane life and see where it goes in your mind.
When I’m driving I don’t play music/turn on the radio. Silence! I always wonder how we’re supposed to hear from God when we surround ourselves with noise and activity. When I’m walking, more silence, except for the sounds I don’t puposely generate. No TV during the day. But yes, I could back off of the social media and email checks!!