The coexistence of motion and stillness
There are no more blank journals in my house; each one is filled to the brim. So I write on the back of a rental application, reminding me of another move. Another change. My honey tobacco candle is lit even though it’s nearly May and it’s supposed to be spring. Coffee’s made - a new kind I bought yesterday. Oakley lays lazily on the deck. pointing his nose up to the sky as he drinks in the fresh air and soft raindrops. I left the lights off unintentionally but I like the way it’s made space for the morning light to pour through my windows. Van Mo plays on my shitty speaker, followed by a song I like called Kaleidoscope Eyes. I’m drinking out of a mug I made in pottery class when I was learning to be grounded and dated my teacher instead. Grounded; a feeling I’ve always craved but had difficulty embodying. I look for that feeling in other people and new places. The pendulum swings from one edge to another; the middle ground — the grey area — has its discomforts. It often feels like an ultimatum: either grounded or moving. I read a friend’s responses to my writing prompts where he reflected on this. How he feels alive when he finds motion in stillness and stillness in motion. This morning I wonder how the two can coexist; how I can feel motion in a world lockdown and stillness once we’re moving again. I wonder if the two are more subtle; like motion can be the movement of creative energy when I write in the morning and stillness can be when I pause to watch the in and outflow of my breath. I can’t ignore the calling I feel for that simplicity. Like I’ve been living up in the abstract for so long and the earth is calling me back down again. Simple things. Subtle things. I notice my ego’s desire for the big things - the extravagant changes — and I practice feeling my feet again. Both planted in connection with what’s here, moment by moment. Lower and lower, closer and closer, opening my body to the possibility that I can feel grounded in both chaos and nothingness all at once.
WRITING PROMPTS
Where in your body do you feel stillness?
Where in your body do you feel motion?
How does it feel when you open your body to the possibility that the two can coexist?
How does it feel to be grounded?
How does it feel when you think of being grounded as more of a living, breathing, moving process?