And then I recognized the change– it was the quiet.
Utter silence, not a ripple or gurgle or murmur emerged from the creek. It was frozen solid.
Usually, the water chatters incessantly, rushing around little corners, flinging itself across rock patches, babbling and bubbling until it’s all I can hear. This day, nothing.
I kept inhaling the silence, trying to take it in –
breathing deep and deeper,
pausing to test the ice before tiptoeing across,
bending down to get a better view into the shadows along the bank...feather here, scat there, thin path from a slender snow bank tunnel to the field’s grassy edge. I was quite sure I wasn’t alone, but no one was out and about to investigate.
Bleak beauty surrounded me.
It was so changed, with the frozenness and the silence...
it was like I had never walked here before.
And though I was walking, some part of me seemed to be motionless, experiencing the deep stillness of the frozen creek.
Apparently, there’s more than one way to be still.
My zooming thoughts slowed down, way down, as I lingered along the winding white ribbon of ice waiting for...nothing in particular.
Nothing at all.
Soul rest.
Within walking distance of
<the to-do list and
<the door trim that needs painted and
<the emails that need to be written and
<the dirty windows and
<the unfinished writing projects and and and...
I found rest!
Adventures in going nowhere.
Out the door, out the road, trudge to the stop sign, turn around, trace the creek path, walk home.
And somehow along that walk,
I found what I didn’t know I was looking for.
Stillness.