Loitering on Useless Bay

on writing, wandering, and wasting time (and who gets permission to do any of those things)

On Whidbey Island there’s a place called Useless Bay. I discovered it while meandering on the island after finishing an event on my recent book tour. It was named Useless Bay by Captain George Vancouver who attempted to anchor his ship mid-storm and got stranded on its sandy and shallow shore.

Clearly Vancouver (whose name has since been attached to the island I now call home) didn’t consult the marine life or early human inhabitants when he named it. Useless Bay is host to a thriving ecosystem. Freshwater and saltwater mix to create a dynamic environment for salmon who find food and shelter in the eelgrass beds of its shallow waters. There’s a rich banquet of small fish not only for the salmon but for the eagles, herons and other birds that nest in the bluffs and trees along the shore. Otters, porpoises, and grey whales are all attracted by abundant food and quiet shelter from large ships.

I parked my car and took a long walk along the beach at Useless Bay. It was only afterwards that I noticed the sign telling me I was a trespasser. Access to most of the beach is reserved for those wealthy enough to own the million dollar homes along the bay.

I couldn’t help but see the irony that a bay named Useless by early colonizing capitalists is now considered valuable by those who could be their descendants. Beauty has become its own commodity, it seems, and access is denied unless you’ve played well by the rules established by those early colonizing capitalists. You have to prove yourself “useful” in order to own “Useless” land.

Black poet Ross Gay once sipped coffee at a café with a “no loitering” sign and mused about who is a loiterer and who is exempt from that status. A financial transaction clearly exempts you; a Patagonia jacket might help to exempt you too. The darker your skin, though, the more likely you are to be named loiterer.

To loiter is to be unproductive, and the more cultural value you possess – determined both by skin colour and contribution to capitalism – the more permission you have to be unproductive. When you have cultural value, though, it’s no longer “loitering” but “leisure”.

I was a loiterer on Useless Bay. I hadn’t earned a right to do useless things along Useless Bay. My white skin and Eddie Bauer rain jacket helped me pass, though, so the locals I met on the beach didn’t question my presence and my transgression was revealed only when it was over.

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I wonder about the ways we name things to denote their value and contribution (or lack thereof). We do this even to ourselves when humans become “human resources” in service to the cause of a corporation or government.

I am fond of Marge Piercy’s poem, To be of use, for the way it values the work of common folk.

The people I love the best
jump into work head first
without dallying in the shallows
and swim off with sure strokes almost out of sight.

I wonder, though, about the people overlooked by the poem - the people who can’t “jump into work head first”. Are they not worthy of love, too? Does one need to be able to “go into the fields to harvest” to be found worthy?

How do we value those with bodies too young, old or disabled to allow them to make the kind of contribution named in the poem? How do we value those marginalized by capitalism’s measuring stick? Do we disregard them, like the shipowners disregarded Useless Bay? Do we call their lack of productivity “loitering” and erect signs letting them know they’re not allowed because they haven’t earned their place, the way I hadn’t earned my place at Useless Bay?

Who gets to define what it means “to be of use” and should usefulness even be a consideration?

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Several years ago, I wrote a blog post called “Sometimes holding space feels like doing nothing”. It was early in my days of writing about the practice, long before I’d written a book on the subject or created courses. Even then, I recognized the inherent difficulty in talking about the practice of holding space in a world that places such high value on productivity and performance. It’s hard to convince people to invest in a practice that is so like “doing nothing”. An article in Harvard Business Review, which referenced my work, tried to argue that holding space is one of the skills we can’t automate and therefore it increases people’s employability, but they also referred to it as not “a nuanced or a particularly intellectual line of human work”.

Holding space feels a little like Useless Bay. We create a container that’s easily dismissed by those seeking a “return on investment”, but because that space is quieter and more protected than other spaces, a thriving ecosystem can be nurtured. Growth, healing, and transformation happen in a space that’s well-held and well-boundaried – a space that may look like “loitering” or “useless” or “doing nothing” to the outside eye. It’s the space we call “liminal”.

We don’t keep people off the beaches in this space, though, and we don’t make them earn their places there. Anyone can have access to the beauty of this version of Useless Bay. Anyone can hold space and have space held – even those who can’t “go into the fields to harvest” to prove they are worthy of love. It’s a practice capitalism cannot commodify.

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“So you see, imagination needs moodling - long, inefficient, happy idling, dawdling and puttering,” says Brenda Ueland, in one of my favourite books on writing, “If You Want to Write: A Book about Art, Independence and Spirit”. (It was written in 1938 – I don’t know if she made up the word “moodling”. I only know that spellcheck is going berserk with my use of it.)

I am a big proponent of “moodling”. I moodle by the seashore, I moodle in my hammock, I moodle among the trees, and I moodle on my favourite little bench built into the roots of a tree down by the lake. Few people would consider my moodling to be “loitering”, but likely if I were Black or unhoused, it would be different. There is much consternation in the local community Facebook group about the “hooligans” who hang around in the same park where I do much of my moodling, so perhaps if I were younger and did my moodling later in the evenings, it would be called loitering.

What Ueland calls moodling, I consider essential for my work. I need “long, inefficient, happy idling, dawdling and puttering” in order to allow my imagination time and space to roam. This post, for example, has spent weeks bouncing around in my brain while I wandered the seashore, swung in my hammock, and sat by the lake.

On Saturday mornings, I do my moodling in bed, drifting back and forth between the dream world and wakefulness. I silence the part of my brain well-programmed for productivity by the hard-working farm folk who raised me, and I float in a liminal space where my brain makes connections between ideas that don’t seem to happen the same way when I’m fully awake.

It wouldn’t be a stretch to call my brain Useless Bay. It hasn’t proven particularly valuable from a capitalist perspective. Even with two books published and my work referenced in places like Harvard Business Review and Forbes, I have made very little money directly from my writing. Only what I’ve converted into courses has brought in enough for a modest livelihood. My brain, it turns out, is far better equipped for moodling than for marketing or monetization.

But, like Useless Bay, this brain is teeming with life. What has emerged from this “moodling, loitering, useless” brain has nourished many who find their way to my shallow waters, partly because I decided, long ago, that I would keep the big ships of capitalism at the fringes and focus on quietly doing what I believe to be the right work to do. My imagination is alive and well (there are at least two emerging books arguing for my attention next, as well as a mini-course on safety, belonging and identity which will soon be available for paid subscribers of Substack), my community thrives, people are being nourished, and there is beauty to be found here.

I love my moodling brain and I love this “useless” life. I have found my own value and don’t need a colonizing capitalist to name it for me.

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Today, before finally getting these words out of my brain and onto the page, I paid a visit to a public aquarium. I’ve been reading The Soul of an Octopus and it surfaced a longing for some time gazing at the wonders of the underwater world. I find it a spiritual experience to witness the colourful, mystical-looking creatures that make the bottom of the ocean their home. It makes me smile to consider just how “useless” they are, down there at the bottom of the ocean where few can see them. I stood for a long time watching the ethereal, purple-lit jellyfish moodle up and down in their tank, and I felt a kinship with them.

It’s in moments like those that I’m most inclined to believe the universe was created by a fanciful, imaginative God. She pokes fun at our human-centric, capitalism-addled ways by placing some of the most ethereal beauty in a place where our access is severely limited by our need to breathe. Perhaps she moodles there herself, enjoying the beauty of the quiet depths where entitled humans can’t interrupt her thoughts.

Down at the bottom of Useless Bay is a beauty that not even those who can afford to live on its shore can call their own. Some, whose high status in this capitalist world made them think they could claim the depths of the ocean, perished in their imploding submersible near the Titanic last year. Not even boatloads of money can guarantee you access to that kind of beauty.

I’m content to stick with my aquarium moodling and my seashore loitering, plus an occasional snorkeling adventure, and won’t try to get down to the bottom of the sea to commune with my “useless” kin. (Of course one could argue that the aquarium colonizes the ocean floor, and I admit to some conflicted feelings about that, but still I want to visit.)

After the aquarium, I wandered on the beach and gathered a pocketful of sea glass – another “useless” act that makes me happy. When I came home, I emptied my pocket into a bowl full of pretty detritus and sat down to write. Tomorrow, I’ll moodle some more before I share the beauty of my own Useless Bay with you, my dear readers. I welcome you to these shallow, abundant waters!

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• Want to moodle with me on Vancouver Island? Join me for two days of Writing with Tenderness, July 20-21.

• I have two book tour stops left - in Vancouver on June 27 (please register if you’re coming), and in Nanaimo on July 4 (please RSVP if you’re coming).

• If you think it may be Time to do the Brave Thing, consider applying to join my coaching circle, which starts July 31st.

• Join a vibrant international community to learn the “useless” practice of holding space. Registration is open for the Fall Session of our How to Hold Space - Foundation Program.

• For those who want even more depth in the practice of holding space, and have completed the Foundation Program, we’re accepting applications for our Certification Program.

• Also, if you haven’t yet checked out the beautiful offering of my business partner, Krista, called Not the Main Character, please do! It starts in September.