Leave yourself a little white space

It's fall, we're entering into a season associated with the color white and the lungs, and I'm thinking today about breathing room. 

In Nerdnote #89, on December 6, 2019, I wrote: "...my calendar is chronically overfull. As my therapist noted at one point, "You like it that way."
I do. I have personally chosen all the colors in my life. And I think of how important it is to leave white on the pages sometimes, to leave room for the imagination and rejuvenation, and I think of how the concept of 留白 liúbái, of leaving white on the page doesn't even exist in the English language. In Chinese painting, the white space that is left on the rice paper adds to the landscape." It is so different from oil painting, where you're not finished until every inch of canvas is covered in paint. (I've always loved oil painting, the vibrancy of color. It's so literal. Leaves almost nothing to the viewer's imagination.)

I am thinking today about how it feels to slow down and give myself a minute, or a few hours, or days. I've been doing the breathing exercise I wrote my patients last week for fall, noticing fullness at the top of my breath and letting it go. I have been giving myself permission just to sit and reread a book, for pleasure, with my child asleep in my lap. And accomplish nothing. My mentor Dr Hao Liu adds that it is ok to feel down, a little low, a little sad, and that to align yourself with this season, it's best not to explain or suppress these feelings during the transition. Leave yourself a little white space to just be.

I was thinking this morning about the Chinese word for reverie, 發呆 fādāi, literally "express simplemindedness" because our current cat 呆瓜 dāiguā (Dorkmelon) is so good at this. If you look at the character 呆 it is made of a mouth 口 on top and wood 木 underneath it. The mind is blank and the body is numb.

I trust that this state of being is also beneficial. Never mind that I'm uncomfortable with it. Never mind that I've been conditioned to go, go, go like summer never ends.

Friday, August 8, 2025 12:39pm