One Moon: One Boring Afternoon

Last week, I was in Shanghai, sitting beside an open window.

I had nothing urgent to do.

No assignments.

No volunteering.

No part-time shift.

No gym.

My phone had somehow ended up on the other side of the room.

The closest things to me were half an iced watermelon.

Cicadas buzzed outside as if the afternoon had nowhere else to be.

It had been raining all afternoon.

The rain stopped.

Then started again.

Then stopped again.

Normally, I hate weather that can't make up its mind.

That afternoon, I didn't mind at all. I felt no pressure to be anywhere else.

I realised I was bored.

But strangely...I was grateful for it. For once, time itself seemed to slow down.

When I was little, before I knew what boredom was, I knew how to be bored.

It meant kicking the trees after the rain, just to hear hundreds of raindrops explode across my umbrella.

It meant lying on the floor, watching the ceiling fan spin.

Back then, afternoons seemed to stretch forever. Nobody was trying to fill them.

Later, afternoons became shorter.

Or perhaps I simply became good at filling them.

A notification, a deadline.

Another video, another scroll, another thing that claimed to be urgent.

Yesterday, back in Auckland, I made another mug of hot tea.

Sat by the window again, watched the rain again.

The only difference was that this time, I was wearing a down jacket.

The season had changed. The feeling hadn't.

That’s when I realised: boredom never left, only summer did.

Perhaps I wasn't missing summer itself. I was missing what summer made possible.

My generation seems to fear boredom more than deadlines; we have become strangely suspicious of boredom.

Five seconds of silence?

Better check Instagram.

As if boredom were a notification we had forgotten to clear.

Yesterday I spent twenty minutes watching the rain.

Not filming it.

Just watching it.

Auckland rain is impatient. It rushes across the window in fine silver lines, disappears, and leaves the sky looking as though nothing had happened.

I wasn't waiting for sunshine.

I was simply keeping the rain company.

Rain is still rain

Time still slows down if you let it.

Last week, boredom tasted like watermelon.

Today, it tastes like hot tea.

Turns out boredom travels surprisingly well.

Maybe every season deserves one boring afternoon.

And so do we.