The other night I asked Ward to come
outside and talk to me while I pulled a few weeds. He was very tired
and wasn't much interested, but he came anyway. As I pulled weeds, we
chatted a bit until I reached a stopping place. Then I decided to to
sit with him on the patio and enjoy the evening as the sun went down. I
sat a minute until the neighbor's air
conditioner came on and thought we should move to another part of
the yard to escape the noise. I sat there, once again, trying to enjoy the sound of the birds, feel the
breeze, and just be still. However, the silence was soon broken when Ward asked what the plant
was with the heart shaped leaves. It was a weed and I jumped up and
removed it. I almost felt relieved as I had been staring at it since
we sat down. I continued pulling weeds until it was dark. That was
when I realized that I don't know how to be still. To just be.
There should have been a clue that I
don't do still very well a few years ago when I was given an
assignment to practice with a relaxation tape where you visualize
calming images while relaxing your body. I was supposed to report on
this exercise a week later. Somehow I never got around to doing it
until an hour before I was supposed to go. Being one who didn't want
to admit that I didn't do my homework, I put the tape in and listened
to it on fast forward. Let's just say that I wasn't relaxed when I
was finished.
My new goal is to be able to sit for
five minutes and just appreciate what is going on around me—not
engage in anything else like electronics, chores, reading, etc. That
might not seem very long, but it will be five times better than I'm
able to do now.
I give you the challenge to see how
long you can spend not engaged in anything—no books, no electronics,
no work—just being still. I think you will find it is harder than
you think.
