2024 Themes: To Go on Being Boring

'May you live in interesting times,' Chinese curse

If you ask me 'What's new?', I have nothing to say
Except that the garden is growing.
I had a slight cold but it's better today.
I'm content with the way things are going.
Yes, he is the same as he usually is,
Still eating and sleeping and snoring.
I get on with my work. He gets on with his.
I know this is all very boring.

There was drama enough in my turbulent past:
Tears of passion-I've used up a tankful.
No news is good news, and long may it last.
If nothing much happens, I'm thankful.
A happier cabbage you never did see,
My vegetable spirits are soaring.
If you're after excitement, steer well clear of me.
I want to go on being boring.

I don't go to parties. Well, what are they for,
If you don't need to find a new lover?
You drink and you listen and drink a bit more
And you take the next day to recover.
Someone to stay home with was all my desire
And, now that I've found a safe mooring,
I've just one ambition in life: I aspire
To go on and on being boring.

-Wendy Cope-

I stumbled on this poem early this year and was easily captured. It is so ordinary and yet so filled with magic. I’m enchanted. It encapsulates a theme of my life ever since God blessed me with chronic health issues that forced me to slow down and take stock of life, that forced me to love little things, that forced me home.

I am filled with a deep longing to live a boring life, to go on being boring. I aspire. It is what I strive for. It is my goal.

Again I made myself a small, pretty sign that said: “I aspire to go on and on being boring.” It also graces the space around the kitchen sink so that I may see my goal for 2024. May it be my most boring year yet. There’s a toast for you!

This spring has been so far from boring that I almost feel like a failure. Having this next to my sink almost feels like I’m mocking myself. I’ve had projects, commitments, social events, two trips, and a hospitality opportunity (a fellow believer who is a stranger needing a place to stay). I’ve changed our diet and my cooking and our mealtimes all while trying to grow as a homemaker. I’ve hosted my first family day in nine years, and I hope to host more gatherings for our broader church family. I’ve planted more plants, planned more flowerbeds, started educating myself about chickens, and thought about skills I want to grow. My husband’s job has required much of me this spring, which takes wisdom and often brings tears. Let’s not even talk about my TBR pile growing faster than I can read. (Oh, the siren call of an unexplored book, and oh the cozy comfort of a beloved story. You will be the death of me.) Things have been anything but boring.

What does being bored feel like? I haven’t been bored in so long.

Wait. Ladies, do you see the mistake I’ve made and the way I twisted my theme? Do you see how I went from using it as a way to stay encouraged and turned it into a burden?

The poem doesn’t say that we wish to be bored. The poem says we aspire to go on being boring. That is a very different matter than being bored.

I like to people-watch. I observe other peoples’ lives or hear about people who run hither and thither, and I realize that I may not be living the bored life of my dreams, but my life is fairly boring in the grand scheme of things. It is relatively steady. It is steeped in the ordinary and that, that right there is the poem’s beauty.

To live a boring life is to be someone who doesn’t find ordinary life boring.

To shoot to be boring is to say we’re done with the razzle-dazzle, the constant striving after the next hot thing. Instead, we're going to go grow some herbs and flowers, maybe get some chickens, maybe plant some tomato plants, but mostly we’re going to settle our hearts restfully on him, them, and here.

Very little in my life is exciting according to the world’s views of excitement. My life is small, dull, and slow. I straighten the small house we’ve lived in for almost 15 years every morning and I close the curtains every night. I prepare our meals, grow plants, write, and read books. He studies, works in the yard, preaches, and plays video games. It is a boring life. We have few adventures, few parties, and as little drama as possible. It is a boring life.

I’m so thankful.

I aspire to go on being boring because I don’t find these things boring.

Give me room in my week to iron and mend.

Give me quiet mornings where coffee, the rising of the sun, singing birds, and opening flowers can be enjoyed.

Give me space to talk to my husband about more than just the next thing.

This goes for my time with others too. Tell me about all things, yes, but tell me about your herbs, your trip to Home Goods, that new recipe, the way Tasha Tuder, Beatrix Potter, Anne of Green Gables inspires you, the book you’ve been reading, the new skill you started training in. Tell me the funny things the kids said, the bug you saw this morning, your sourdough, and the coffee you enjoyed this morning. Tell me about the laundry, changing the sheets, cleaning the bathroom, and organizing your cabinet. Tell me about what you found at Home Depot and your latest kitchen-sink-daydream. Tell me all the little boring things that the world says aren’t glamorous enough to be interesting. I’m interested. I want to hear about it.

Don’t make the mistake I did and think that the goal is to be bored. We desire to be productive, useful, and helpful. But being a homemaker, in our heart of hearts, is to love the “boring things” because they are so far from boring as to be almost indescribable. They are so exciting and alluring as to be able to fill a lifetime. Growing plants, cooking meals, and tending people is soul work via temporary things. Homemaking is a test of our mettle, fortitude, prudence, frugality, and cleverness every single day. Let’s aspire and encourage one another to continue to go on being boring while smiling because we know we’re not bored.