Crackin' Nuts

The quiet burden of unfinished things

For more than two years, nearly fifteen pounds of black walnuts have sat on a blue tarp in my basement, tucked next to a bunch of old paint cans.

You know why they’re still there: The walnuts are still in their shells. And black walnuts are hard to crack, even though I own a fantastic nutcracker. These walnuts have become my talisman for procrastination in all things, something I — and probably you, too — struggle with.

The walnuts used to live scattered on the tarp in the middle of my basement, visible every time I went there; I put them on the tarp to dry after hulling them. But when I had my basement windows upgraded, we folded the tarp into a ball and moved it into the corner, mostly out of sight. Mostly.

I knew it was there. Every time I did laundry. A reminder, quiet yet persistent. I know, I know — I need to deal with you, black walnuts. But not today. A faint wave of guilt washes over me. I avoid looking in the mirror, at least for a while. But it passes. The mental note I wrote for myself buried by other tasks.

It’s not like I’m lazy. I do things all day every day. And I know my life comes with more freedom than most. I’m not raising kids, and I don’t have a household depending on me. But my life is still full as I try to make a living in this modern world. And sometimes my days are not my own. Sometimes they get hijacked by circumstance, or by others. And then that mental note about the walnuts disappears altogether.

Over time, those friggin’ black walnuts stopped occupying space in my basement so much as they did in my mind.

The cycle of avoidance and procrastination, guilt — usually washed away by scrolling Instagram or cooking or working out — repeated itself so many times that after about a year, it ossified into a blockage. Procrastination paralysis.

Procrastination is not laziness. It’s friction between intention and action. And sometimes avoidance feels almost physical. There are moments when the simplest tasks feel impossible: Not because they are hard, but because something in us quietly refuses.

When this happens, I can step outside myself and look back — and what I see doesn’t feel like me. Maybe you know the feeling? There’s a piece of you rolling your eyes, maybe crossing your arms, and huffing, just freakin’ do it already! It’s not that effing hard!

And then, one day, the rest of you listens to that huffy part.

First I gathered up a tray of walnuts that had been in my spare room, not the basement. I got my Grandpa’s Goody Getter out — this is that badass nutcracker — set it on my dining room table and started cracking walnuts. Alas, all but two were rotten or desiccated.

There it was. I’d waited too long. The paralysis won.

I tossed the shells and the desiccated nuts outside for the neighborhood tree ninjas, pouted awhile, doomscrolled Instagram, then decided to toss the basement walnuts, too.

Just for shits and giggles, I cracked one. A nice nut inside! I cracked another. It, too, was still fresh. Then four more, all nice. Maybe the humidity of the basement saved them? I dunno, but right then and there, I got a bowl, an old cardboard box for the shells, made a mug of my favorite tea — mint, rosehips, leadplant, and other herbs a friend once mixed for me — and got to work.

I like cracking nuts, once I start. It’s meditative. Quiet winter work. I’ve written about this before, and I was happy to find that the feeling still holds. I quickly had a nice bowl of black walnut nutmeats. I felt lighter.

In many cases, I egg myself on when the procrastination paralysis hits by offering myself some sort of treat: a beer, a walk, a meal out. But in this case, the treat was the nuts themselves. I add them to my morning cereal almost every day.

Make no mistake: The resistance was real. But it wasn’t a signal that the task was impossible. It was just noise.

Two years of dread ended in two calming hours. Avoidance costs more than action.

Starting breaks the spell. Small motion restores energy. One thing. Then another. Then another. I really didn’t need discipline. I have that in spades. What I needed was just to begin.

I still have more walnuts to crack, but I shelled more than half of them in that one session. And now I have plenty for my cereal, for cookies, breads, pesto, maybe other fun stuff.

Munching on a few nuts right out of the bowl, it occured to me that much of the weight we carry is not in the work. It's in the waiting.