Decades ago I wrote a paper on flâneurs, a French creature (human) who came to prominence in the mid-nineteenth century. He (occasionally she, flâneuse, but fewer of them…) was a dapper figure who strolled slowly, so so slowly, through the streets of Paris sometimes with a turtle on a leash. The turtle set the pace. Now this may sound like performative absurdity, but there was something deeper at play. At the time, the city of Paris was under construction by Georges-Eugène Haussman, hired by Napolean III to recreate the city with wide boulevards, which resulted in the tearing into and destroying of neighborhoods made of winding little streets where, you guessed it, the middle-to-lower classes lived. These wide, sweeping boulevards were meant to stymie protests since throwing up a quick barricade in a small side street took a relatively short amount time and was pretty effective to make a point that the people were angry and wanted to be heard (see Les Mis barricade scene. Yes, it’s a musical). Hence the new avenues: wide enough so that it might take forever to find enough wood for a barricade and big enough for tanks to roll through during celebrations of men’s cockiness (literally). Also straight enough for, as Mark Twain wrote, “a cannonball … [to] traverse from end to end without meeting an obstruction more irresistible than the flesh and bones of men…”. All these grand avenues led to one place, the Arc de Triomphe. (A similar excavation took place in NYC during the era of Robert Moses. Jane Jacobs took him on to a certain extent. No musical. Motherless Brooklyn, the movie, kinda/sorta rolled in The Power Broker about Moses and his, er, cockiness.)

So the flâneur was born. While on one hand an observer of street life, moving so languidly as to take in every. single. crack in the sidewalk. But on the other, they were seen to be protesting how life during the ongoing Industrial Revolution was speeding toward uniformity and anonymity. A pedestrian (the kind that takes two feet) protest of modern life in the city. And while it was true that the person who could afford to do this type of urban disruption was usually exempt from speeding to a job that required them to work their asses off 24-7 in order to eat, their actions got attention, their motives brought discussion. There were poems and writings and general literary wordplay about them. The boulevards did not go away. The pace of life didn’t slow down. The poor and working class still worked their asses off. There was the insurrection of 1871 that created the Paris Commune, a socialistic government that briefly ruled Paris in the spring of that year, but otherwise c’était ça.

Why, you wonder, am I going on about these centuries-old foreign figures? Because it seems to me a pretty good time to reassess involvement in the speed with which the world is turning while also noticing the physical pause we’ve all experienced these last many (many) months. I’ve been wondering whether non-action might be seen as radical action? Or is it rather just a head-buried-in-earth, overwhelmed reflex? So I loved how this op-ed, “Work Is a False Idol” in the NYT, laid out a similar act of protest. “Work has become intolerable. Rest is resistance.” Dubbed the “lying flat” movement, this isn’t a scene populated by well-dressed, economically secure dandy’s strolling in public, this is literally everyday people withdrawing from parts of society that have pounded folx into sad, overworked, overstimulated pulps whether from jobs, news, social media, whatever the poison. Of course there has to be mention of the reality that to those who don’t have a choice, who must roll forward at the speed of sound for many reasons to do with money, security of family, etc., this approach may be seen as entitled. The piece points out though, that there is a very real form of activism and resistance here from all strata. “In the United States, Black activists, writers and thinkers are among the clearest voices articulating this spiritual malaise and its solutions, perhaps because they’ve borne the brunt of capitalism more than other groups of Americans” [Cassady Rosenblum]. 

Being someone who needs to make a living, I’m not so much at liberty to lie flat on the regular, whether metaphorically or literally. But I do absolutely appreciate the sentiment of making the changes I can as the world feels both paralyzed and propelled—one half on fire and drought, the other drowning in too much rain and fierce wind; and death, destruction, war games, etc. on the planet overall. What to pay attention to? How to help? Where to conserve energy and do the best as a ripple effect out from myself to the rest of the planet? I have no concrete answers for any of this. I do notice though that adjusting to life away from tall buildings with offices (something I shifted away from pre-pandemic) brings the missing of certain interactions and the wearing of outfits but it’s also lowered teeth-gritting moments and the recurring visions I would have of me lying flat on my back in the middle of a room—or wherever—just giving up.

Giving up. Not a bad thing in measures. I’ve given up the salary of a somewhat high scale for a lesser wage that still keeps me under a roof and lets me decide a bit on my hours so I can write and hang with my dad. I can also swim three mornings a week, a newly discovered passion thanks to the local Y. Yes, I own goggles. No, I haven’t worked out any sort of Katie Ledecky free-style breathing technique. I’m just managing to move forward and it feels really effin’ good. I also get to take very long strolls around this town, wandering by big houses, small houses, into parks and a cemetery, while listening to podcasts and making up stories about the people who live here. A bit of a flâneuse activity. A certain amount of pushback against over-scheduling. Money and survival not far from my brain most the time, but the downshifting is noticeable emotionally. The trick is to remind myself that it is my decision how much or little I want to take on given the parameters of need and time. Being used to always saying Yes. Being crap at keeping guilt at bay as the world devolves and I think I have to do something. This last can be a bit of an ego trip so overall it’s a choose your battles kind of moment. I will not be taking a turtle for a walk. I will be supporting the lying flat movement in my own special way. To all you reading this and out from there, I wish the same!!!