There are very few times in my day, week, month, year, life that I am more content than when I’m on my bed or couch or floor staring up at the ceiling. To do this right, there cannot be any technology involved. The laptop is on the desk. The phone is in another room on silent. This infuriates people who are trying to contact me and who know where I am as I might have shared my location with them.

But they can wait. The whole world gets put on hold while I’m studying the light for the 33,000th time, the edges where the walls meet, making up the space that is my room or the living room or my sister’s spare room, the spider webs that appear in the corners that meet the wall without any spiders. It’s important business that requires attention to detail.

For those of you that don’t know what a ceiling is, it is an overhead interior surface that covers the upper limits of a room. So, when lying horizontally on your back, you get a pretty good view of it. Lying there I can hear the 735 from Melbourne coming in, then the 740 from Brisbane and the 745 from the Gold Coast. I looked this up once and the schedules are pretty close, give or take a few changes depending on weather in that particular part of the country. Melbourne gets delayed a bit. But that’s alright. Melbourne folk take it pretty well and don’t mind to tell you that “sorry I’m late, my flight was delayed”. The Gold Coast people will call a spade a spade and say “my flight got delayed, fuck it”. Always trust the Gold Coast to keep it real.

It could be on a day off or the time I have to myself before work. It could be for five minutes – although I found myself doing it for four hours once before looking at a screen and being delighted about it. It could be that I’m lazy. It could be a form of meditation, I’ve never looked into it. Maybe it falls under the banner of relaxing.

Whatever it is, ceilings are great. They’re there. I’m there. All the thoughts I’m not thinking are also present. I’m not tired, I’m just not doing anything. It isn’t an act of reflection. It’s an act of not being anything. Forget being present. Forget being employed. Forget the ceiling. I don’t have to be anything or anyone or even a sausage. It’s nice to be oblivious for a few minutes. When the breeze comes in through the window that’s always open, it wakes me up with an epiphany – a bit like Dostoevsky in front of the firing squad – which is total appreciation for the mundane. And it’s particularly nice when it’s the elements that bring me back, instead of my sisters, who are also keen players of the ceiling game.

Finding out that all my sisters have this crucial habit thrilled me immensely. The other day I rang my little sister, the Bear, to find out if Jarvert does indeed kill himself, and to break my heart completely for the second time. “What’s going on?”, I asked her. “Staring at the ceiling”, she replied. This didn’t need to be elaborated on. She was engaged in serious business – far more important than any work she’s done with former state premiers or Australian prime ministers. “Yes, he kills himself”, she confirmed, then offered, “and everyone else dies too”. Sorry for those who are reading or want to read Les Mis, but if this information deters you from doing so, then the book isn’t for you regardless of the information revealed here. Don’t cry over spilt plots.

Interrupting other people’s ceiling-spotting sessions doesn’t often elicit the same indifferent response. When living in Kirra with my youngest sister I went to her room to clarify why all the towels (14) were dirty and on the bathroom floor. This was a pressing matter as they had been washed on the Monday and it was a Wednesday. “Rat, why are all the …” Here she shot me a glance that could cut the sun in half. She was on her bed. Staring at the ceiling. Only brave enough to broach this with her now (three years on) I asked why she likes doing it. “Not having to be in the company of other idiots” was the precise response and I’ve never felt closer to her.

You almost need a crowbar to knock my other sister, Biddy, off her ceiling stare. She’s in her room, doing the thing, and I call out three times before making my way to her room to ask, “Dude, what are you doing?”

“Staring at the ceiling, what does it look like?”

“Fair call.”

“What do you want???”

“Aw yeah your kid is crying. Are you going to do something about that?”

“Yeah. MAATTTTTT”. Then Matty attends to the little one. So yes, the ceiling is like a vacuum for us.

I’m not sure from which parent this habit has filtered down to us but I, like all of us girls (I’m aware I’m a boy, but being one of four and the only boy, I’m happy to fall into the “girls” category), am delighted that it did.