There is an art to boredom. More specifically, there is an art to doing nothing. As I shift into travel mode, I find myself adrift in a familiar limbo. I know where I'm sleeping tonight, I've eaten, and I can't make any more progress on job hunting for the day. I don't want to hang around my host's apartment/hostel and I can't kill more than a couple hours in any given restaurant or coffee shop.
So I walk.
I walk around nice neighborhoods and through parks. I walk down main streets and across parking lots. If I see an interesting shop, I'll go in, walk around, and leave. I don't listen to music while I wander because that usually makes me walk faster, which gets me nowhere much sooner than I'd like. Occasionally, I stop for a photo-op or to admire the scenery (activities defined by scale: macro photography vs. panoramic vistas too big to fit in any frame), but there's never a true destination until enough time passes that my digestive system requires fresh input or output.
The walk has an interesting effect on my state of mind. As I slip deeper into my thoughts, doubts creep into my daydreams. What am I doing here? Did I make a good choice? Did I say the right thing? And as I watch my feet dutifully march on, I assure myself that I have, in fact, handled things well. Alone on a quiet corner with nobody's judgment but my own to consider, I find, almost invariably, that I'm on top of my shit. By the time I walk into the last shop of the day and gently ask if there's a bathroom I might use, I have a smile playing on my lips.
More than once, that smile has made me dinner plans.
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