Unscheduled Time

Veasna Has

photo credit: Veasna Has

It’s a Saturday morning and somehow I’ve been up since 5 a.m., despite normally struggling every day of the week to get up for work by 9 a.m. I wonder if I’m just especially sensitive to the sunlight creeping in through my window, or if my body knows that it’s the weekend and that I should enjoy as much of my unscheduled time as possible.

I hear faint piano. I’ve started using my Google Home speaker to play piano or jazz in the background because I’ve found it to be more calming than silence.

I’m in my room, grateful for a bedroom that feels like a home, filled with things that make me curious and happy. Even before all of this, I’d stare at my things around my room while mulling over my thoughts. There’s a lot more time for that now. I’ve picked up so many odds and ends from the sidewalks and stoops in my neighborhood over the years, back when I didn’t think twice about touching strangers’ items. Now, I look around at an empty ornate gold frame propped up on my work desk, a decorative glass decanter on a shelf, and dried flowers standing in gin bottles, because I’m trying to be witty about “gin blossoms.” The green and blue glass bottles are my favorite. I miss being able to walk around my neighborhood at my leisure, stopping to look at things that catch my eye without having to worry about...anything.

It still smells like the candle I lit a few hours ago. I’m not sure what the scent actually is, but it reminds me of soap, like the interior of some hipster apothecary. Lighting a candle was new for me, something that I might fold into my atmosphere-setting routine to add to the calm. I’m very conscious about the space and setting I create for myself now. 

It looks like a sunny morning. I peek out of my window, even though I probably won’t venture out today because in the end, it just makes me anxious. It must have rained overnight, the ground and outdoor furniture look wet, plants dewy.

I walk over to the mirror on my wall. I look tired. I’m wearing my big glasses to give my eyes a break from contact lenses and screen strain. I wonder if I’m supposed to care about maintaining some level of appearance these days. Usually, in the minutes before a Zoom meeting, I’ll stop in front of the mirror and try to pat my hair frizz down and rub the sleep out of my eyes—but it’s so futile, because it’s so much more than sleep. It’s stress. It’s the feeling of being untethered. It’s uncertainty. Can you rub out uncertainty?

Veasna Has is an arts nonprofit professional passionate about storytelling in all its formats, with a special fondness for written, cinematic, and choreographic mediums. She lives in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn (by way of southern California). @VeasnaHas