Still

Sit still.
My response to online dating surveys when inquiring as to your favorite activity.

For 20 or so years, I have practiced the art of deep stillness. Typically, my sit still sessions coincided with sunrise. I began my day enveloped in darkness, awake, aware, steaming cup of coffee in hand, journal and pen in the other as the sunlight slowly spread itself across the horizon.

I never understood the perpetual motion of some women. Always up and about doing something. Why? Sit. Still, for awhile, I would implore. Can't the dishes wait?

Aero had been home from the hospital not 48 hours when I realized my 'sit still the dishes can wait' paradigm had to do a major shift. When I let the dishes wait, they waited 3-4 days, piling up before my horrorfied, sleep-deprived eyes. Panic ensued because the more I avoided, the bigger the the project became and caring for Aero was all consuming. When would I find the time?

And as the paradigm shifted, the veil lifted. Now I know why 'some' women (read: women with children) are perpetual motion machines. If you don't take the moment, you lose it. Walking around the house with a crying baby and spying piles of dirty laundry, dust bunnies, dirty dishes and overflowing garbage do not lend itself to staying calm and centered in the storm.

Sitting still is still my favorite activity only now I share the time with the best snuggler in the world. And although stillness is now truly a luxury, my life long practice has given me the ability to close my eyes for a moment to feel that sense of peace and calm that stillness allows.