Stillness

Two days ago my friend Shawna visited. She brought me two bird candles and a stone with the word “stillness” etched on it. Today, in Barbara Abercrombie’s A Year of Writing Dangerously (which I highly recommend), I came across this:

“To be engaged in reading a book or in writing, to connect to your inner life, goes against everything contemporary life, with its bells and whistles, is about. To be quiet, to be still, in this raucous world can be scary. But sometimes just acknowledging that fact helps to take some of the fear away.”

This is something I’ve been brooding about, with my teenagers away. My teenagers with their TV and phones and I-Pods and …. They, too, have been without their technology this week, doing good work on the Campbell Farm in Yakima, Washington. And river rafting. They get home today, just when I seem to have finally acclimated to the stillness, to appreciating how the living room, after I cleaned it on Monday has stayed clean all week. Just when I’ve mucked out the bathroom and lit candles…

I can’t wait to see them.