Quiet

Looking around this afternoon at sunset, I saw an expanse of fields surrounding me in all directions to the horizon -- white from the snow and stubbly with freshly harvested stalks.

I saw truckers lined up at the four-way stop, anxious to get back on the interstate now that the road had re-opened after the blizzard.

I saw people driving to the local grocery, picking up provisions. I saw people walking back to their rooms from the bar, luxuriating in this respite from the storm.

Back in my room, there are any number of distractions to keep me from quieting my mind. Slowing my breathing. I turn on the television, soaking in the news, absently flipping through the channels, then watching the first twenty minutes of a movie I have no interest in.

I light a few candles, settle in with a good book. The sun goes down. The noises outside in the hotel parking lot grow more and more infrequent and subdued. Gradually, my mind quiets, helped along by the measured prose of the book, the familiar smell of candle smoke.

It used to be that each day I would busy myself with the stuff of my rituals and routines. Once in a while, if I was lucky, I'd find a few minutes of blessed quiet: breath, blackness, the buried insights would begin to swirl into focus.

Yet now I find myself with this incredible gift of time -- this period of pause, where I can take stock of who I am and what I wish to be. The knowledge that I can pick any track I want somehow isn't producing a great deal of anxiety. And maybe that's because I've found my way off one track that didn't feel sound -- didn't feel right for me -- and in the process I found out that I am resilient. I found my creativity was still there, waiting for me to slow down to find it.

Now, I find myself smiling much more often. I find myself connecting much more often with my inner self, my quiet self.