A moment of quiet
I’ve taken to trying to discover those moments of peace in the day, week, months. 2017 has made it a challenging goal. Every day there’s a new way the world’s on fire: Nazi’s this, Trump that, world disaster caused by the inability to grasp global warming. I take each moment, as I can.
I’ve taken to trying to discover those moments of peace in the day, week, months. 2017 has made it a challenging goal. Every day there’s a new way the world’s on fire: Nazi’s this, Trump that, world disaster caused by the inability to grasp global warming. I take each moment as I can.
In my attempts to find peace, sitting on the balcony listening to the Amsterdam silence — relating to Cage’s idea of music, silence— is what I have to work.
Today, I was able to find a moment.
Standing on my balcony, taking ten minutes, without music, without internet, without my phone. The sun was setting in front of me, barely visible between the buildings, overlooking the train tracks. There was this cat, playing with a piece of plastic on the roof of a house nearby.
I watched it go to and fro. It played with this plastic piece, jumping up and down, gnashing at it as the cat through it into the air, knocking it back down. It ran from the scrap, hiding behind a large potted plant; staring. It’s fur raised, patiently watching, stalking the inanimate piece of plastic. It darts from one corner of the roof, full sprint, to the plastic, hopping, tackling the plastic strip. Then, it’d run away again, to another corner, behind another potted plant, stalking that plastic.
To watch this cat play, stalk, prey, and tenaciously watch this plastic was, surprisingly, peaceful. It was, wholly, a cat. All this while the sun, filled with purple cumuli, streaked by memories of airplanes, going and coming, set over my horizon.
The point, though short, is to take those moments as they come. Sit outside, without connection; notice. While we can’t control the chaos of the world, we can affect change in our small ways, in our push for a reigning kindness.
This one, surprisingly ordinary, hit hard. And for that instant, brought a fleeting peace. I’ll take the moment, I’ll take what I can.
