Being quiet

I'm addicted to socializing, to being busy, to running forward, sometimes without even knowing where I go - which is beyond the point. The most important part is - keeping myself busy. I try to stop now. I try to simply be quiet. To observe instead of actively looking. To sit still instead of jumping up and being impatient, checking my watch every few seconds. To stare out the window instead of doing the next important task, or, if no tasks are handy, occupying my brain with the latest chit chat online. It is harder to do than I thought. To stop. Even now, this second, while writing, I keep the music blasting to motivate myself to move forward.

I wonder... I wonder what will happen if I turn it off. Now. It is off. The remnants of the song are still playing in my head. But a new rhythm is present - the rhythm of typing, the rhythm of raindrops in the garden, the rhythm of my heartbeat. It unsettles me. I want there to be sound. The sound of life - people talking, cars moving, dogs barking. Anything. The quietness is pushing itself gently on my ears. It's heavy, and I am terrified I will suffocate. I sit and wait it out. I realize it is asking me to do the hardest task for me - to say no. To say no to "too much". To say no to little things that fill my day to the brim yet strip it of its simplicity. To say no to the wants of the immediate, for the beauty of the eternal. To decline my wish to overload, to keep in check others who are used to overloading me. To keep complexity at bay and be ok with almost nothing. To look at my hands and trace its lines - for no reason, just because it feels nice. To recognize the feeling of being overwhelmed, no, to recognize the shadow of the feeling of being overwhelmed - to predict it before it happens - and to give myself space and step aside. To not fight it, but to let it brush past me - barely moving my hair. To be ok with where I am right now. To try not to speed up tomorrow, not to obsess over the past and what should have been done. To practice looking at a pile of chaos, knowing it needs to be organized, cleaned up, stored away - and doing nothing. Just standing there over it, knowing there is always going to be stuff that needs to be done - and it will always stay behind - because there is only so much I can do. And, as I do it, eliminate, eliminate, eliminate. 

Make it less. Take in less. Plan less. Let myself simply be. Be quiet. Be there. Take time to do simple things like drinking water. Picking up a clear glass. Lifting it and looking through it - to see how it reflects the light. Opening the faucet and letting the water run, catching it midstream, bubbles and all. Turning it off and staring at the droplets on the glass, on my hand, on the sink. Lifting the glass to my mouth and pressing it against the lips - feeling the coolness, then taking a sip. Taking time to drink it. Or, taking no time to drink it. Drinking it. And not doing anything else - no thinking, no wiping off the counter, nothing. Just experiencing the act of drinking water - innocent enough, yet very hard to do. Something we do every day and don't even think about - because our mind is always elsewhere. But it can make us happy. I feel happy. From drinking water. How convenient is that? No happy pills, no therapists, no endless books. I don't understand how I didn't see this before, how I didn't know this before. Why I thought happiness was something else, something that has to be fought for, traveled to, awarded like a prize to those who work hard at it. When in fact it pays of to do simply nothing. Being slow. Being quiet. Being the opposite of what is drilled into our heads from the beginning of our lives - something we have to make ourselves unlearn, in order to learn to enjoy ourselves. Some of us never unlearn it, and suffer in agony, thinking we are not good enough, not fast enough, not smart enough. Pressing forward even more, striving to get there, pushing each other, elbowing our neighbors, as we charge forward like a pack of wild horses - forgotten why we started running in the first place - only to arrive years later at a conclusion that all this running was for nothing. It didn't mean squat. It wasted our best years, and left us with broken hearts and limbs. Scrambling to enjoy what is left of us - then and there, before it's too late and before we all land in a nice wooden box - the only difference being the color of the lacquer and the cost of the metal handles - cheap iron versus diamond encrusted gold. Who cares? Do we? Nope. Those that would be left behind do. Nothing for us to be left to show off - nothing for us to experience. Except, perhaps, picking out the arrangements before hand - keeping busy even in the face of the end of it all. 

And so I try to be quiet. In my own way. Perhaps alienating some, perhaps having others raise their eyebrows. Do I care? I try not to, but it's not true - I am still plagued with the importance of my public image, but it is slowly fading. Opening up what is really there, underneath, under all that chatter. Me.

Photo by Craig Cloutier.