Grounded::Quiet

When I was a kid, I loved to go sledding. Naturally, I'd get tired from pulling my sled back up the hill each time, and my feet would feel so heavy in the snow. Sometimes I'd take a little break. I'd lay down at the bottom of the hill to rest. I can remember everything about how it felt to burrow into the snow for a while, looking up through the treetops at the sky. I knew the snow was cold, but I was warm inside my snowsuit. I'd sink down into the ground and experience the quiet.

There is nothing like the quiet of winter, especially when the snow is falling. The air changes. Something calls the animals to retreat and rest. Peace settles like snowflakes.

Most years I actually move in the opposite direction. I usually fill a new year with goals and intentions before it even starts. Not this time. Now, I’m choosing to move very slowly. I’m trying not to look at what is ahead of me, and just burrow in and be grounded right where I am.

It is not easy!

I’m a person who spends a lot of time in the future, surrounded by images of all the great possibilities, planning and mapping a course. And as life carries my family along, I’m someone who gets thrown when things don’t look exactly as I expected them to. So, I respond to life with new plans and more maps. I want to control every possible outcome.

What I’m finally willing to admit is that living life this way just isn’t fulfilling. And when I acknowledge that I’m unfulfilled, when I say that I am capable of much more happiness, and that I want to feel lighter and freer, it actually scares the shit out of me. I go running to the plan book, because surely I can download some sort of solution to this problem.

I should work more. Or less.

I should sing more to the girls.

I should eat less sugar.

I should say grace.

I should

I should

I should

No. Not this time.

There is nothing like the quiet of winter, especially when the snow is falling. The air changes. Something calls the animals to retreat and rest. Peace settles like snowflakes.

This time I will take a little break. I will lay down at the bottom of the hill to rest.  This time I will let the answers find me. I will be waiting right here, in this moment.