What's so great about Northern Exposure, you ask?

John and I have been buying the DVD's as they are released, and we've recently just gotten Season Four. Before season four arrived, when we had watched all the others, I began to feel a little homesick for Northern Exposure. Not that I need a tv-fix everday, John and I try not to watch too much tv.

But the characters in the town of Cicely, AK are very endearing. The whole show is about Joel's growth from a neurotic, modern, scholastic, New York doctor to a man in tune with irrational possibilities and the natives' sensibilities towards nature. On the episode John and I watched last night, titled "Revelations," Joel faces a slow couple of weeks at the office and is unable to deal with the quiet. As Bernard puts it, Joel isn't dealing with his existential angst, and needs to be willing to embrace the big nothing.

Joel asks Marilyn how she is able to just sit in the office for hours, "What do you think about?" he asks incredulously. In her calm, self-assured way she answers,"paper clips."
"Paper clips? You think about paper clips all day?!"
"Not all the time. Sometimes I think about colors. blue mostly. and beige."

I cancelled my class today (it's Makin Music week... don't get me started), so I am sitting in my office all day, with no specific time schedule - trying to be productive.

We modern westerners think efficiency is one of the highest values - so that we might fill our time with as much high quality output we can.

I wonder how different my life would be if I were able to just sit.