The other morning, I began going about my highly regimented routine as I do everyday:
Step 1: Make the coffee. This is by far the most important piece of my ritual and is the only one that has proven itself deserving of my undivided attention.
Step 2: Place water glass under the refrigerator water dispenser and let it fill up while opening our dog (Bean’s) can of food.
Step 3: Take water glass out from under the refrigerator water dispenser before feeding Bean. This one sometimes gets missed, which leads to me, 3 minutes later, wondering why the kitchen floor is soaked.
Step 4: Feed Bean while microwaving the milk for my coffee. Because why would I put cold milk into my piping hot cup of perfection.
Step 5: Make my daily yogurt bowl/pour the coffee.
Step 6: Wrangle water glass, coffee mug, and yogurt bowl to the couch to begin my much-needed, quiet, peaceful time. Yes, I very often drop things and/or slosh coffee all over the house.
I then proceed to place a couch cushion on my lap, precariously balancing the yogurt bowl and my journal on top of it, coffee mug in one hand and pen in the other. After my 20-minute journaling session has been accomplished, I promptly turn on the Bluetooth on my phone and begin playing an audiobook. I then head to the shower, waterproof speaker in tow, audiobook blaring. The other day, as I congratulated myself on a morning of self-growth well spent, I noticed that the air conditioning fan had been left off that night. Consequently, there was no hum of ambient noise pulsing through the house. Out of nowhere, I realized the only sound I could hear was the padding of my cat’s footsteps as she walked towards Bean. I froze and was struck by how adorable this sound was. Our animals have a very strange relationship, and our cat, Gelsey, actually LOVES Bean. As in sleeps on his stomach, tries to rescue him from bath time, LOVES him. When Gelsey was about 5 steps away from Bean, I heard her start purring. She actually purred in anticipation of cuddling with him. I had never noticed this before. All of a sudden I was overwhelmed with real, internal quiet. I started laughing. I realized my “quiet” mornings were often another checklist– I wasn’t really listening to life. If I had been, I would have noticed that during this particular morning, the simple acts of watching and listening were worlds more calming than journaling.
My tendency has always been to plan out every minute of every day, making sure that I use my time in a way that will be the most “productive” in achieving my outward, society-approved goals. I quite honestly don’t even remember high school. I did my math homework during religion class, studied for French quizzes during band, worked on the yearbook at lunch, and left early on occasion to go to the ballet studio. I watched TV while getting ready in the morning and listened to music while I drove. Fortunately, I would now consider myself a recovering “busyaholic.” “Recovering” clearly being the operative word here. While I value cultivating quiet in my daily life, I still wake up many Saturday mornings and find myself subconsciously planning how I can most effectively and efficiently unwind that day. Sometimes I even get stressed out by the idea that my day might end and I won’t have relaxed correctly. It appears that while some of my values have changed (i.e. actually valuing relaxation is a major step forward), the tendency to fill the crevices of my life with pre-planned activities has not.
The thing about peace is it has its own time schedule. Peaceful moments will respectfully walk up to each of us, tap us on the shoulder, and ask us to please pay attention. If our TVs are always on, peace will simply walk away and try again tomorrow. If we fill all of the crevices of our days with music, TV, or even something as seemingly benign as yoga, we can forget that the quiet we’re searching for is right here. The journaling and meditating are just tools to remind us that we have nowhere to go and nothing to do to experience peace. I remember the first time I read Claude Debussy’s quote, “music is the silence between the notes.” It was almost as if my entire being wanted to scream out YES. THIS is what I need. I need to focus on the in between. The rest takes care of itself, for the most part. Our society has trained us to be good at making the notes of a song. The thing we haven’t learned is how to breath, and by doing so give our music rhythm. I wonder how the cadence of my days would change if I slowed down and listened each morning. Maybe I would spend a little less time throughout my day noticing posts on instagram, and a little more time enjoying the small, seemingly insignificant moments that combine to form a life.