My Mind Is A Room

Think left and think right and think low and think high. Oh, the thinks you can think up if only you try!

-Dr. Seuss-

I cannot stop thinking. When I consciously try to stop thinking, my mind starts to think about not thinking. I take deep breathes. I try to become centered. Still my mind keeps thinking about not thinking.

As I am a shy person, people always assume that my silence means I am thinking. They nervously laugh and tell me not to analyze them. Though I most likely wasn’t thinking of them before, I do begin to think of them after their statement. I wonder what they may have seen in the way I looked at them to make them so sure that I was thinking of them. I wonder if such a question was posed out of a feeling of self-consciousness or a strong belief that they deserve to be pondered over. To these people, I always smile and nod. They can think what they want.

Being a writer, people also assume that my mind is always full of brilliant ideas. They take my silence to mean that I’m sorting through ideas in their presence. They ask me to tell them what I’m presently working on. When I say nothing, they think I am just being bashful. They make me promise that one day I’ll let them read what I’m working on. To these people, I also smile and nod. Let them wonder about this mysterious piece of writing.

Unfortunately, my thoughts are neither abundantly analytical nor creative. In truth, nearly all of the time my mind thinks about little nothings. I see a woman walking down the street and I wonder where she is going until I see the next person and I move on to them. I see an ad in the newspaper for pens and I wonder if I should venture out to buy these pens until I see an ad for facial tissue, and it reminds me to go blow my nose. Whenever someone tells me I look like I’m thinking about something deep I always laugh because it reminds me of a conversation, I had a couple of years ago with my oldest brother.

My brother is a genius. He is Harvard educated, but that doesn’t even account for a tenth of his intelligence. If you want to know about anything, you must go to the walking encyclopedia. I remember one morning a couple of years my mother and grandmother kept remarking on how obvious it was to them that he was thinking about something of high importance. I remember rolling my eyes much to their dislike and going into the living room to see my brother. In short, I said, “Mom and Gram think you’re thinking something amazing. Are you thinking about something amazing?” He looked at me, no emotion apparent on his face. “Just squirrels.” he said and laughed. When I reported this back to the old ones in the kitchen, they didn’t believe me. I didn’t expect them to. No one expects a brilliant person to think about something so every day.

The human mind is a fascinating place. I firmly believe no two minds look the same. My mind is filled with memories and bits of information that I only use on occasion. I like to think of my mind as a room. There are stacks of papers on the floor. The most important papers are framed and hung on a wall. A comfortable couch sits in one corner; the standing lamp beside it is always on. In the opinion of some people, as my ideas are so colorful and fantastic, my mind must have artwork hanging on the walls. In truth, the walls are nearly bare. I’m not ready to decorate my walls just yet.