QUIETNESS

St. John's River, FL

Our lives are busy. Far too often they are too busy, and we forget what it was like to stop, breath, and enjoy the absolute quiet that we need to allow into our lives. 

We have families. We have have jobs. We have activities. We have meetings. We have appointments. We have hourshold chores. We eat, sleep, watch TV, listen to the radio, watch videos. We work out. We garden. We even go on vacations. But, do we take time for doing nothing and have a quiet time?

Everyone who knows me knows a couple of my frequent comments. 
1) "Relax? What's that?"
2) Sleep is over rated."
You see, I'm with those who seldom do 'nothing'. If I stop for a while I tend to just fall asleep. And sleep is not the quiet time I am talking about here. 
 
We need to take the time to enjoy the quietness we can escape to in our minds. Taking time to just run from our busy and filled lives. We can find it in the early mornings as the world wakes around us. It can be as the sun sets and darkness quiets the world that surrounds us. We can even be in a crowded room and find it.  As in the phrase I used in one of my poems many years ago. "In a crowded room I stand alone..."

Quietness of our minds is found in many places. Those places came easy to us when we were kids. We loose that ease somewhere along the way as we age. 

It's that spare and seldom span of time when we get to sit and let the gentle breeze blow through our hair as birds sing, the sun drifts in and out of the clouds as they drift by and we are warmed by warmth of the sun. 

It's laying on a blanket or just the grass looking up at the stars trying to count them as we try to remember the names of the constellations. 

It's sitting by a window listening to the thunder and the rain off in the distance and seeing a rainbow arc to the earth. 

It's sitting on a rock in the woods and watching the ants working together to take care of each other. Or watching the spider build its web, and then rebuild it when the wind tears it apart. 

It's taking a moment of time to clear you mind of all your worries and stress. 
 
It's a time we seldom take. 

It's a time we need to take out of our busy lives to inhale a deep breath and refresh our souls. 

When do you take this time, you ask?  Anytime you can. Like many though we don't make time for it. We schedule everything we do every day of the week and can't imagine adding one more thing to the time we have. And yet, if we set aside this quiet time once a day, or at the minimum once a week we will benefit from the rewards.  


As I write this it is the weekend. Time to grab a fresh cup of coffee in your favorite mug, a cup of tea in your most fancy cup, or a drink of fresh water in a pretty glass and find your quiet place. The deck, the porch, the front room looking out the window, or in the middle of a crowded room. Turn off all the man made noise. Listen to your heart, listen to your breathing. Listen to the quiet. Take a deep breath. 

Quietness -- that time you allow yourself to enjoy just being!