What is an interruption?
Dinner is ready, I’ve lost my place again
When you are in the middle of thinking about something, is it challenging to not think about what you were doing? I’m no theorist of attention, but I do know I dislike interruption.
The cut of daily notifications, calendar pings, meetings. Sometimes I don’t even bother to work on a project that requires deep thinking when I have a meeting in an hour, so uncomfortable is interruption.
A holiday weekend. Enjoy this special family time. Come face-to-face with distraction—the planning and the engaging interrupts my thinking about something else, a line of logic, a thread I’m pulling, a twist I’m trying to see. I worry I appear inconsiderate. Do I want to be kind or do I want to be seen as a kind person? Honesty. Am I unhappy? I arrange to meet friends only to feel restless, annoyed, some writing is unfinished. A scene about friends discussing their relationships and not mentioning their envy, but the emotion radiates to the reader from the way they hold their pea coats and interrupt. Is this feeling called escapism? Maybe I live too much in my texts. Well, if we’re friends, you know I like to text. I care about you.
Usually, I can eventually relax into the interruption, make the dinner, dance in the living room, play games with the children, give you a call and ask what’s new. Converse, find humor. I have the good fortune of family and friends, perhaps I take them for granted, at times. Is that cruel or human or both?
Then there are the jobs I’ve had, different from dinner. Jobs unrelated to my fields of expertise. Jobs related but underpaid. Short jobs. Unpaid jobs. Timecards, emails, contracts, titles, nerves, alignment, reminders; I sound so cliche. I bought a sweater that says “Busy” when I saw my neighbor-friend, a talented artist, wearing one at a performance. Funny, relatable. I want to wear the irony.
The novel, started when—two or is it three years ago? 2021. I thought that was my year. I thought 2023 was my year. But the eighth or ninth draft is in the bin to become paper airplanes. Again, that ache or annoyance, why these interruptions, so many interruptions. I’ve lost my place again. I haven’t woken up at 4:30 am to write. I keep the humiliation, my failure, to myself—shush, don’t say anything please—no need to make myself out to be a martyr to my unrealized desire to make art. It’s simply a sign I’ve been given up by my fickle genius, forsaken, left to longing. So long, genius! Perhaps I wasn’t passionate enough to have you stay as my art monster, so you’ve gone away. I will sleep, work, arrange, cook, work out, hang out, check in, clean, text my mom, text my friends, read. Savory pie. Yukon golds. Planks. Memes. Texts. Laundry. Mop. Another day of AI anxiety. Intermezzo. Cloud Cuckoo Land. I do these things to be bearable. To not be a monster.
A few weeks ago, I unearthed a notebook. Funnily enough, the pages—which I do not remember writing—full of soft graphite scratches—nearly smudged out of intelligibility are similar to what fills my blank sheets of paper today.
Affirming and curious. So the genius didn’t abandon me after all, shall I pet her? I’m just a copycat, always have been. Copying someone, you, you, copying myself. I’d be lying if I said I don’t. What else could explain my unconscious, vulture-like circling around the same topics and questions, despite the many interruptions, and the inevitable changes that come with living, caring, working, and aging?
After a storm, on an Internet wander before a panel, I find the Zeigarnik effect. Attention! This is a theory that humans remember strongly when they’re interrupted. Can’t let go, it’s not finished. Theorized by a Lithuanian psychologist, Bluma Zeigarnik, she was a part of the Vygotsky circle, in the Russian/Soviet cultural-historical school. Incidentally, I studied this lineage, read the scratches in the notebook of fragments. I must have lost my place, again.
The example Zeigarnik used to illustrate her theory is the waiter who remembers orders despite interruptions.
Perhaps Zeigarnik’s theory can help explain life interruptions, the persistence of unfinished thinking. Perhaps it could also justify or validate people, you, me, for instance, returning to something after bereavement, maternity leave, care work, or illness; changed by the interruptions, and yet still having the pet, the unconscious urge to persist, to think the thought to the end, to finish.
I was talking about finishing thoughts with one of my dear friends. She’d returned to her job after a leave and said, jokingly, that her boss had unrealistic expectations for her mastery of the many institutional procedures that had changed during her pause. “He should be grateful I can still remember his name,” she laughed. Touche. Not all thoughts call you to finish them. Nevertheless, when you do something else, you do not have give up what you were working at before.
Then again, should I be looking at this another way? Why do my desires and unfinished thoughts keep interrupting me from feeling satisfaction or contentment or happiness in daily life? Warm, affectionate people are sleeping by me, we make plans together. There’s fluffy laundry, a wonderful home, interesting work, my curious partner, our neighbors, my parents, the dancing? Soul-affirming events with friends, conversations, live music, sensory sensuality. With you, I am more whole. I grow. I hurt. I wish to be touched. What’s with the pompous intellectual vanity? Some desire for control? Urge to be recognized? Is it a grief, some longing and sadness for a path I wanted that didn’t materialize? Is there even a word for a grief for that which was anticipated but never was? Probably in German. If that’s a terrible joke, I’m sorry. I did study some German, years ago, the compound words are remarkable.
The ‘interruptions’ that have kept me thinking, circling, not just for an hour or a day or a month, but for years, these interruptions are, actually, my life.
Courses and Offerings
I’m teaching writing classes at Hugo House this winter! One online, two in-person workshops! Bring your memories of faraway selves and your memorabilia. I’m especially thrilled to teach in a classroom in the city with chairs and a whiteboard. To be near each other as we read our words. Please register and/or share.
Retracing the Steps: Writing Travel Stories
Six Sessions, First meeting is 2/12/25; 7:10 pm – 9:10 pm PT | Hugo House | Online
Pack your memories, memorabilia, journal entries, library cards, and beloved dreams. We’ll spend six weeks dissecting various structures of travel essays while writing our own. Learn more
Words that Stick: The Art of the Writer’s Newsletter
One Session, 2/22/25, 1:10 pm PT | Hugo House | In Person
Finally get your writer newsletter up and running! Learn strategies for engaging your readers, meeting goals, and marketing yourself and your work. Leave with your newsletter set up and an actionable plan for next steps. Learn more
High Intensity Fiction Generator
One Session, 3/1/25, 10:00 am PT | Hugo House | In Person
Looking to exercise your writerly muscle? Push yourself to the limit in this fun, high-intensity, fiction generator class. Learn more
Meeting of the Minds | Developmental
Individual, by appointment | Online and/or In-person
I offer bespoke “thinking-with” sessions that include reading and discussion of your works, themes, and help you identify directions. For people in want of intellectual interlockers to deepen and strengthen their thinking, creating, and writing. Inquire for details.
Thank you for reading The Gift.
Yours,
Monika
The Gift
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