Calming the Noise

“If we’re adding to the noise…. Turn off this song…..If we’re adding to the noise… Turn off your stereo, radio, video”

~ Switchfoot “Adding to the Noise”

Our world has a great deal of distractions. We have information at our fingertips. We have food that can be zapped in a matter of minutes. We have many different devices that give us instant gratification in the form of short videos, games, and memes.

But sometimes, there is so much noise. There is so much movement, so much that causes tumultuousness and chaos and anxiety. There feels like there is not enough time to just be still and know.

I myself am often a body in motion. I am constantly moving, fidgeting, thinking, overthinking, doing…. it gets overwhelming sometimes. And when I have those quiet moments to just be, sometimes I start thinking of all of the things that need to be done. My yard is full of weeds and fallen sticks from the recent storms. There are chores to be done. There are stories to finish. There are a few crochet projects staring at me from the corner of my living room. There are appointments to be scheduled and even people I need to reach out to. The mental load, that list inside my head, grows longer and longer.

And yet, I try my best to find the moments of stillness. I try to find ways to quiet the noise. And while I am not always successful, I still work at it, for those moments are full of wonder. There is magic in them. There is peace amidst the craziness of struggle. There is clarity when those moments are found.

Let me tell you a little story.

My swath of the Midwest has had some crazy weather this summer. As a new homeowner, this crazy weather causes me a bit of anxiety because I now own a house that has a bunch of old trees. But I also own a OLD house with a few quirks of its own. And one of them happened last week. I had come home from work to discover that our detached garage suddenly had no power. The door wouldn’t open. The lights wouldn’t come on. And since I knew to check the breaker boxes and all was well with those, I was stumped. Since I was overwhelmed by the day-to-day grind of life and could not find a moment of peace, the problem of not being able to park my car in my garage existed for two full days afterwards. It wasn’t until I had a day off, a little geocaching and country roads to help reframe my thinking, and a moment to calm the noise in my head that I discovered the solution was simple. An outlet had been tripped by the storms and needed to be reset. All was well in the world, or at least in my tiny above here in my little swath of the Midwest.

But I needed to calm the noise to find that solution. I needed to have some peace and contemplation. I needed to find some stillness before I could even try to tackle the problem. And now…. now I know how to do it next time.

**This video isn’t from the adventure I went on that morning…. but it’s a good moment of quiet if you need one from another adventure I was on. And the photo that heads this is from another moment of peace I had recently at Purple Martin Lake in West Des Moines, Iowa.**

In a world that praises the constant motion, find that moment. Find the peace. Be still. Just breathe and be.

Stay magical, friends. Write your own story.

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