Oh this must be what it’s all about
This must be what paradise is like
So quiet in here, so peaceful in here
So quiet in here, so peaceful in here
~ From Van Morrison’s “So Quiet in Here” (Hit link to listen to greatest tune ever…)
Photo: DK, Daybreak. October 14, 2020. 6:48 am. 48° F. Cloud Cover: 2%. Cove Island Park, Stamford, CT
Notes:
June 7, 2020. Daybreak. 5:14 a.m. 62° F. Wind: 9 mph, Gusts: 27 mph. Weed Ave, Stamford, CT.
Paul Klee: “One eye sees, the other feels“
“Running is practice for not quitting.”
A line from Robert Andrew Powell’s Memoir titled ”Running Away.”
Unclear why the line stuck after I read it in Beth’s post titled Custodians of the Peace of Mind. But stuck it has. Who’s my Custodian?
Running is practice for not quitting.
It’s been a month. Every day. Every.Single.Day.
Out the door at ~5 am. Backpack over left shoulder, camera in right hand. Both hands occupied, smartphone tucked away, and inaccessible.
I walk.
5 mile loop. 1.5 hours. 50-70 photos. Every morning.
Followed by a photo upload to the P.C.
Then a slow page turn of the pics.
And a deletion of the misfires.
Then a creation of a Google Photo Album, “June 6 2020 Cove Island Park Walk”
Then I connect the Day’s album to the Google Nest Hub Max via my smartphone, which rotates each photo in a slide show on a 10 sec delay.
And, we have a new performance each day.
I’ve moved the Hub Max next to my PC, and there it sits with me, from 7am to 7pm, my entire work day.
Photo’s on the slide show, click, click, click, click. And for that second, I’m swept back to that moment when I took the shot.
During conference calls. During Zoom meetings. During email replies. During text exchanges. Those pictures, that I took, that I made, that captured some beauty in my eye, causing me to stop, and pause, and see…and then snap. They draw me gently away from Work, to the Moment.
Louise’s blog post this morning lands softly. “We call home through everything I do. Everything I create. Everything I am.”
Running is practice for not quitting. I believed this in my bones.
But I’ve quit.
And I like it.
Photo: 6:07 a.m. this foggy morning. 67° F. Wind: 5 mph. Cloud Cover: 68%. Long Island Sound from Weed Ave, Stamford, CT.
“The multiplication of our society’s demons has been accompanied by a ratcheting up of the sources and volume of its background noise. The chatter and diversions of our lives (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, texts . . .) serve to keep the demons at bay, even as we are creating demons faster than we can create noise to drown them out: environmental devastation, global warming, the growing gap between the rich and the poor, uncontrolled population growth, unlimited consumption held up by international media and most of our leaders as the glittering purpose of life. The appropriate response is not more noise. The appropriate response is more silence. To choose to be alone is to bait the trap, to create a space the demons cannot resist entering. And that’s the good news; the demons that enter can be named, written about, and tamed through the miracle of the healing word, the miracle of art, the miracle of silence.”
— Fenton Johnson, At the Center of All Beauty: Solitude and the Creative Life (W. W. Norton & Company, March 10, 2020)
Photo: DK: 5:31 am. Daybreak. June 4, 2020. 64° F. Cloud Cover: 44%. Wind: 6 mph. Weed Ave & Cove Island Park Beach, Stamford, CT.
5:02 a.m. I’m out the door. 65° F. Hass: “Still. Not a breath of wind.“
Morning routine since May 5th sans running. 5 mile round trip walk to Cove Island Park. New thing, this walking thing. Camera forces me pause, to stop. Apple Watch flashes “Finished Your Workout?” And offers up two options, “End Workout” & “Pause.” I stare at the both options. Even looking at “Pause” makes me uncomfortable.
I look for my Canada Geese and their two offspring. They never disappoint. Fluffy youngsters, hungry, pecking away at the grass. Mother hisses. Hey, I’m Canadian too, cut me some slack!
I look for my Swans, mates, sleeping with their necks tucked back under their wings, floating on their water bed on high tide.
I look for my trio of mallards, two females and the polygamist. Skittish.
I look for my Loon, solo, always solo, fishing. She dives deep. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44…and she’s back up on top. I catch myself inhaling, a deep breath for you girl.
I look for my Egrets. Pure white, as snow. Heart sinks a wee bit in their absence.
I tune into Fenton Johnson‘s new book on tape At the Center of All Beauty: Solitude and the Creative Life and I’m swept away by the narration: “If the journey through our interior landscape is so critical to our characters, let us become more informed and responsible travelers. Let us start by turning off our phones and spending more time alone…with the red semaphore atop the cell tower blinking on, off, on, off, presence, absence, presence, absence. I bask in this lovely stream of words…thinking: This is why one becomes a monk: to cultivate in every moment presence to the beauty of the world…The spirit works with what she has at hand.“
I tuck my earbuds away and walk.
It’s daybreak. Sunrise paints the sky, and the still water below her.
And yes, “soon enough, I was quiet too.”
Silence can also be a friend. A comfort and a source of deeper riches. In The Silence That Follows, the poet Rolf Jacobsen wrote:
The silence that lives in the grass
on the underside of each blade
and in the blue space between the stones.
The silence that rests like a young bird in your palms. It is easy to see oneself in Rolf Jacobsen’s experience. Alone out on the ocean, you can hear the water; in the forest, a babbling brook or else branches swaying in the wind; on the mountain, tiny movements between stones and moss. These are times when silence is reassuring. I look for that within myself.
— Erling Kagge, Silence: In the Age of Noise
Notes: Photo by Chris Jones with Blades of Grass. Prior Erling Kagge posts here.
The silence I have in mind may be found wherever you are, if you pay attention, inside your mind, and is without cost. You don’t have to go to Sri Lanka: you can experience it in your bathtub. — I discover silence when I stay five extra minutes in bed at home.
— Erling Kagge, Silence: In the Age of Noise
~ sara, from “ways to start feeling again”
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