The Joy of Monotony

Hulling Walnuts from katie on Vimeo.

I am impatient and manic; vulgar and overly chatty; exuberant and precocious. There's not a lot of quality stillness or silence in my life. In light of all this, it is profoundly helpful for me to have monotonous jobs where I can zone out and repeat an action or motion to distraction. Jobs where the stillness can come and settle. I exclude from this category any repetitive action on a computer. While data entry and code tweaking can be satisfying, I need more of the mind-body actions to get the good silence and stillness. The above video is one step towards making walnut ink. The hulls (and not the nut) are the parts that stain: here I am removing the hulls and discarding the nuts. Working with plants is slowly changing my concept of time.