By Bob Perks
I didn't think I could do it. I am always on the move. When my body is not, my brain runs away somewhere and I need to go find it.
I was like a caged animal tonight. My day was turned around and mixed up with an early rise and mid day nap. I hustled off for a doctor's appointment and then ate lunch at 3:00 p.m.
So by the time we finished food shopping I wanted to do something, keep going, or simply just walk some place.
But we returned home and I paced inside and out. There was a fresh scent of rain mixed with cool breezes bathing my body and soul. I walked in one door and out the other, pausing long enough inside to know it wasn't where I belonged.
My sneakers soaked up the wet grass and I desperately wanted to go bare foot. Thoughts of sitting in the rain, permitting myself to be soaked straight to the bone danced through my mind. Faintly in the distance I could hear my Mother yelling, "Bobbie, get out of the rain! You'll catch a cold." But being the boy I was and remain still today, I kept on splashing, spinning, dancing like a fool, knowing fully that I would get in trouble. But I had been there before. I knew trouble well. This moment was much more important.
But today the rain had stopped and only memories of it remained.
So I grabbed a chair and sat on the front porch. I challenged myself to sit still.
I rocked and wiggled at first, nervously changing my position to find a comfortable spot. Then suddenly it happened. It wasn't the first time and I pray it won't be the last.
I felt a part of everything around me. I immediately connected with the world. I felt at peace, rested and a part of something bigger. I tuned into the sounds of the birds sharing their early evening chatter. I watched each car pass and seeing the driver, wondered who they were and how their life was going. Was that red car a reflection of their personality? Did that expensive convertible shout "look at me, I have money?" Or was I reading into things that didn't necessarily mean a thing?
I hardly moved at all. Yet, the world came to me. Except when I lowered my head for a moment and rubbing my eyes, I happened to catch the sight of a tiny red spider. Within the fifteen minutes or so that I watched it, it never went anywhere. It moved constantly within about a one square foot spot on my floor.
What was it looking for? Where did it want to go? Why didn't it walk in a straight line to get there?
That's when it hit me.
There have been times in my life where I ran around in circles thinking that activity meant progress. When in fact, I never got anywhere.
Then there were times when I felt like I was standing still, going nowhere and yet I learned more about who I was.
You see, sitting still on the front porch proved to me that the world will come to me when I need it to. Or at least I learn to appreciate more the immediate world in which I live. Earlier that evening when I was darting in and out of the house I was like the tiny spider, in motion but getting nowhere.
The key to this, I learned a long time ago from Dr Wayne Dyer, is "nowhere."
Learning to sit still, converts nowhere into "now here." What you see in this word....nowhere....is a reflection of how you perceive your life.
Once I accept where I am and discover it totally by connecting to every rock, tree, insect, sound and human, I grow into the world and it accepts me. Now traveling any where I can learn to be a part of it just by sitting still long enough to welcome it into my life and it in turn accepts me as a part of the whole.
No longer can I say I am getting nowhere, simply because it doesn't exist. How can nowhere be a place?
Believe me, if it weren't for night fall and mosquitoes, I'd be "sitting...still."
Try it!
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