Stillness is the Move
I borrowed the title of this post from a song by the Dirty Projectors: Stillness is the Move.
I was walking early Sunday morning, before 7AM, in the Rose Garden of Golden Gate Park, and the song gravitated into my consciousness, the way that song lyrics and poems rise to the surface, like driftwood on the tide, when we’re alone. For me stillness literally involves movement; I have to walk to find it.
A friend recently asked how I get out of bed so early.
I am asleep most nights before 10Pm, often dozing off in one or the other of my kid’s twin beds during tuck-in, and waking up a few hours later to wind chimes sounding from a neighbor’s yard, and the gentle glow of their nightlight, my body realizing it needs more space.
Early Sunday morning I see the glass on the street where the car window along the park was smashed in, the owner most likely still asleep; the woman walking her 8 week-old puppy who just arrived from a farm in Colorado the night before, carrying him against her chest like a newborn – his paws still too young to touch the city sidewalks; the roses covered with a mist that I’m still too new to know is fog or rain – the birds loud chirping.
I get out of bed so early because this is the time I find stillness, and stillness is so hard for me to locate at any other hour. And I so desperately need it to get close to any sort of knowing that helps me navigate the world – its constant chatter and endless news feeds -- the opposite of a birdsong.
I know what’s true in these moments, can locate my center, my heart full on fragrance and grace: the pinks and reds and peach and yellow rose petals catching and repelling rain, the top of the Golden Gate bridge shrouded in fog, my sneakers soaked through from the wet grass; it’s all here for me, if I go out to meet it.
For any of us, all of us, to meet it.
Continued strength and love friends.