time has passed, things have changed, how long do we need to get used to things? How much time do we allow ourselves? Do we stay idle enough to settle in?
|3 minute read|
In front of the balcony door I sit. The warm, thick air that circulates upstairs makes me grasp onto the spring a little longer even though the leaves outside are already bright green. I’m criss-crossed on the floor, my white shirt wrinkled over my stomach, my lower back beginning to get sticky with sweat. Little paws patter next to me, my cat has joined my slow afternoon haze. She watches intently, her sharp eyes darting to catch the sounds of the birds, but I look out the window, searching for something I am not sure I can put into words.
Throwing my thoughts to the small breeze, the pressure of my being slowly eases. Tongue to the roof of your mouth, relax your eyebrows, release your jaw, your shoulders. It doesn’t take much to carry the worry on your face. And I'm not worried of anything in particular, but as fast as the weather has warmed is how fast my life has been changing. A cool tide to constantly sweep what lies beneath my feet. What I’ve come to recognize as a new normal, is out of style by next week. So no, I’m not worried, I wouldn’t even say I’m stressed. I am the secret in between; not quite flustered enough to be hysterical, but level-headed enough to be tense. And so the tide goes, swallowing all that I was and all that I knew, leaving behind a new set of things to ponder.
I was going to state the question, “have I lived before now?” but I don’t think that’s fair at all. Yet when something new comes along, the shine, the grandeur, makes one wonder what they did before then. A new job, a new person, a new experience; at first, seems like such a task to get used to. The way things change isn’t always easy, but what a joy it is to get settled in. So we can call it what it is.. settling in. How do you do that? What does it look like?
“It’s 3:30 and I love you”. Words I’ve never heard before, said to me in the way it was meant. Even in front of this window, I can feel how I felt, bubbles in my chest, my skin warm and prickly. I’m settling in to the person who can be loved, a person who can hold a heart. And in these moments, the ones that might catch us by surprise, we look for grace, or at least we should. One cannot settle in all at once; the edges to which I fit I am still growing into, still creating.
To settle in, is to let yourself learn, to experience. The sacred space of staying still. Like the buds that sit atop the tree branches, still through the winter only to blossom in spring. When the sun is right, when the weather is warm, when a bird lands and sings their song to keep them sweet company. It is okay to change without chasing, the world that molds the soul. The self as the canvas, not the brush, our beings so still, so careful, has enough time to root to what is desiring us, what makes its way to us. We turn our heads to answer the call, and sometimes we won’t ever turn back again. Quiet enough to have what is meant for us, lay peacefully next to us in the night. Stillness in the pursuit of ambitions.
The culture in which we have become attuned to is not one that finds time to settle in, to find stillness. Lately, I’ve learned this the hard way. Swimming upstream in a hustle mindset, packing my brain and my schedule full of things to check off in my planner to seek some sort of manufactured sense of fulfillment. Like a ringing in your ears that won’t go away, like a sore throat that isn’t cured by swallowing your own spit a few times. Because of this, I didn't realize there was only a few days left of May, that winter seems far away, that I blinked my eyes and spring was also gone, that half a year still lies before us. I wasn't still, I didn’t settle in. Where had I gone?
Now I’m back in the window, my cat and me. The hot air hangs over me still, but this is the moment I’m taking. Outside is the chaos I'm in no rush to get back into. A splurge of time for stillness, a delicacy of settling into myself, the natalie that I’ve shaped up to be. Spring is for staying still, and the rose buds are blooming.
I like being still with you, until next time,
natalie <3
