Member-only story
Stillness
The great pause of 2020 is maddening to some. This makes sense, because when all the noise that exists in the world is eliminated we are left with a void that is hard to hide from.
In this void it was easy to hide. To escape you simply needed to leave the house. You could pass the time at another party, another gym session, another talk going on at a venue somewhere downtown. You could simply put to rest whatever issue was going on internally with a distraction. Another Meal, another Coffee, another Date, it was easy, to pass the time and just hide. From one tree swing to the next, our monkey mind could swing and swing and swing. Until we had to pause.
This pause was awkward. Suddenly we were stuck indoors. We could snooze for a week, one week, two weeks. Four weeks past and it still continued. Until we snoozed and snoozed some more. Snoozing was no longer an option. With all the noise around us gone, we were forced to confront all the noise inside us. No longer could we hide from awkward domestic conversations, no longer were we validated by the size of our office, or the color of our dress. We were naked, and on an island. The island of our naked thoughts. Ugly and hanging clear for all to see.
And we didn’t like what we saw. We broke down in ways that were never exposed. Exposed brick from the walls of our heart became open wounds. Our fragile ego had no fertilizer…
