***
Today, I stop fearing the pause. I drive with the windows rolled down. The air after the rainstorm is fresh, soft, and cool. Evening gently spills over a
darkening lavender sky. For once
in a long time, I don’t turn on the music. I have been taking shelter in
loudness, in pop songs, recycled playlists, and anxiously searching for new
songs to dive into and let those catchy lyrics replace the repeating lines in
my head.
I’m running from being alone, which is uncharacteristic for this
introvert. Typically, I revel in moments of stillness. I crave alone time to
sort through thoughts and get swept into daydreams. I delight when my seemingly full schedule offers pockets of
peace, a sweet time for non-doing, just being.
Lately, though, stillness is unbearable. I am relieved by the amount
of work required for my summer position coordinating summer camps. I escape into
an endless stream of music. I avoid my journal. I’m afraid of turning inward.
The words are not ready to be formed; the emotion is raw and tender. I wildly
flee into a week of doing, busying, loud listening, and lean on discipline and
sweat breaking exercise to fill the in between time.
I know this pattern. I let myself run because I trust there will
arrive a time when I’ll be ready for silence.
And that time is tonight as I drive through twilight.
I dare to not turn on the music. My thoughts wander. I jump forward
into the needed to-dos and prep for the week ahead. I fall back into the past.
I get lost in the realm of future and past and then awaken to the sounds of
traffic surrounding me.
“To pay attention. This is our
most proper and endless work.” Mary Oliver’s
words emerge with the stars, giving me the courage to just be in my own
company.
I gift myself with my own generous, compassionate attentiveness. I
come home to the breath. The breath meets me with ease, generous, full and
spacious. The tidal rhythm of breath echoes the ebb and flow of thoughts,
emotions, sensations: a beginning, a middle, an end, and then the cycle begins
again.
I notice where my thoughts travel with a sense of curiosity: they scan
the week ahead in the attempt to be better prepared for the start of a summer
program. Behind the analytical preoccupation is the cooing, mournful song of
the heart.
Staying connected to the breath, I brave the quiet. I feel the intensity
of ache. I am present with the hurt, but I no longer identify with the
emotional pain. I marvel at the depth of my emotion, my ability to love
fiercely and hurt deeply, and the heart’s ability to hold the entire spectrum
of emotion in one breath.
Embracing myself in compassion, I let myself feel what I need to feel.
Taking steady and slow breaths, I
let my thoughts unfold without judgment. I meet myself here - in all my
uncertainty and vibrancy - with wholehearted attentiveness.
I am tempted to turn on the radio and do a few times only to turn it off. By the time I arrive home, there is only the song of wind and a rush of tires on pavement. The stars are in full bloom across the summer sky.
I am tempted to turn on the radio and do a few times only to turn it off. By the time I arrive home, there is only the song of wind and a rush of tires on pavement. The stars are in full bloom across the summer sky.
This is my simple act of courage: to mindfully and wholeheartedly be here in the pause.
