On being still

From where I sit in the cockpit, the still water is like glass, save for a very occasional ripple from a stray breeze. The cormorants, perched like yogis on the pilings of the abandoned dock next to us, spread their wings to dry in the late-day sun. The gulls swoop by just inches from the water, looking for their evening meal and offering their signature laugh as they execute a perfect hammerhead stall to repeat the glide in the other direction. The little silver fish they hunt flip and jump joyously, evading their captors. In the water just behind the boat, the jellyfish glide silently, their bells pulsing rhythmically.

Exiting the chaos that was last week and being transported here has been a bit of a shock. Every few minutes my mind replays the incidents of those few days, unbidden like an endless screen saver, images I fear will be forever burned there. But being here, in this place of peace, forced to stop what is for many a frenetic pace of life and just be still...is a gift, however much it nearly cost us.

When was the last time you just sat still? No phone, no TV, no computer, no tablet no Pandora. Just still. Many of us can’t even do it. We panic. How much is missed by our frenzy?

Stillness is an exercise that must be deliberate and practiced, and one I confess I avoid too often. I’m a doer. So much so that even my grandkids have stated to complete strangers that “DeMa is happiest when she has a project.” Cruising on a boat certainly offers opportunity to experience stillness—the quiet anchorage at the end of the day, the star-filled sky, the sunrise as you start the day's journey—but often the pressure of weather and The List steal away the stillness even on a boat.

This place, this sudden wrenching of our plans from our control, have forced me to stop. To be still. To realize in a very real way that we have a place in the network that is the natural life around us. It’s restorative. It’s calming. It’s peaceful. And right now, it’s the healing that we both need.