My everyday life is simply too busy. Mostly because there is so much to do and partly because I don’t know how to sit still. I have small children, a husband and endless chores to tend to. I feel that I race through each day with a mental ‘to do’ list which is often misplaced and never complete. I feel guilty if I sit down for 5 mins. If I have time to make tea I drink it cold and standing up.
Over the past few months I have become increasingly aware that I need to take some time to think, to absorb and to embrace peace. I have a thirst for the crystal waters of solitude. There has been a hollowness in my writing. Frenetic days leave me with so little to draw from, the well is empty.
Last night I read the 1st 26 pages of ‘Romancing the Ordinary’. I picked it from the book club box thinking that it was a novel, it isn’t. Early days to tell if it’s a good book but it struck a few chords. Those few pages prompted me to resolve to somehow steal 15 mins a day to do nothing. Not ‘me’ time to read, write or any other indulgence, that would still be doing something, what I need is very much to NOT DO. I need to do nothing, nothing but observe and absorb, I need to fill that well.
This morning 2 wriggling little bodies sandwiched me out of bed at 6am. I went out onto Mom’s balcony and sat looking out over the ocean. The sky ahead was grey. I searched the sea for a glimpse of dolphins but saw none. The grey rolled closer. I watched clouds shape shifting ahead and above. A boat entered rain below the grey belt. I imagined being on that boat, wondering where the rain would end. Aware of the luxury of my perspective. I could see the parameters of the storm. I mused that in life’s stormy times it would be so comforting to have an external view, to be able to see sunlight and rain in the same picture, knowing the points at which each ended and the other began.
Well that was my first 15 mins of embracing nothing. It was a joy to feel that I had connected with something, something outside of me and something within.
The crystal waters of solitude – love that! May you have plenty of nothing in your days ahead.
Think of it as a phase – one that might pass sooner than you expect; I remember those times of having to multi-task…no time for myself. And now I miss the frenetic energy. At the end of the day, we always write from where we’re at, imagining where we’d rather like to be – it’s called being human.