Written by I do my best thinking in the shower. There’s just something about being in that private place, away from the noise and demands of my daily life, hot water pelting my skin washing away the sleep and stress. It shifts my brain into another gear, sharpens my focus.
It’s sort of like I’m constantly surfing through channels on the radio dial throughout the day. I pause here and there to tune into stations as needed. Then the dial spins again and I’m back to surfing and trying to make sense of the static. But those 15 minutes in the shower, standing alone in the steamy bathroom, I can dial into the station I’ve been searching for, crank up the volume, and jam along.
I’ve taken to keeping my cellphone nearby, so I can reach out and quickly type a note or capture an idea when it strikes me. It works in a pinch, but it’s not really the best method, and I constantly feel like I’m losing some of my best ideas with the water that swirls down the drain.
I’m also constantly worried that I’m going to drop my phone right in the shower and and have to deal with that temporary headache.
I need to find a more efficient way of catching that inspiration. Hit me up, people. I’m open to suggestions.
I love those moments of clarity, when all the thoughts and ideas that have been simmering suddenly come together, when I snap the puzzle pieces in place and I’m finally able to stand back, put my hands on my hips, and look at the big beautiful picture that emerged from the mess. It’s a moment that makes my stomach flutter, like that split second when the rollercoaster pauses at peak of the climb as if to admire the intricate complexity of the journey ahead before tipping forward and plunging into action.
I guess I’m sort of amazed by it too–the fact that our brains are capable of all this. Right now, my brain is doing the very important business of keeping me alive–telling my heart to beat regularly, telling my lungs to breathe in and out, scanning the entire system to detect threats, and taking in all the sights and sounds and signals to make some sort of sense of it all. All of this while still helping me to organize my thoughts into some sort of order and sending the message to my hand to form the words on page, to type sentences onto the computer screen.
I’m in awe of it, and completely humbled by the fact I’ve been given the extraordinary superpower of being able to think about and analyze and contemplate the universe around me. We humans are rather remarkable, aren’t we? To be given such an incredible gift, and an enormous responsibility.
Now if we could all just get on the same page and agree to use our superpowers for good, that would be something.
Lori Romano 