It is not enough to just wake up, not enough to pinch a forearm hard to believe.

I do believe that winter holds its own sort of stillness and simplicity–when all you are doing is trying to stay warm and keep heat. The world can trickle down into maintaining the act of shiver. Sure, there is that. And that is so far away from now, the now without sleeves on a porch as the clock ticks more into night. There is this kind of stillness, the July kind, the midway through.

I know that citing some sort of normalcy never works. We have no norm to work with. Maybe this is better known as habit? Personal stillness, simplicity, is important. I’ve kicked against it for so long, long enough to misdiagnose it–maybe a new form of crazy, maybe some sort of broken, some sort of numb. I have struggled with that, wondering if prior years on medication caused a residual dent, tied the nerve endings into bows of matted splints, dead bits like scissor legs in a permanently opened yawn. But no. It is just finding a place, finding a comfort–the go-between of mind and heart being better understood, as opposed to lost. A misunderstanding is not a loss. It is just encouragement to continue the search, to keep the ear all siren to the ground. Stillness in self is not a fault, but better yet a chance to take in surroundings. To listen more, to receive more, to give more. To find out what is important.

Maybe the hardest lesson learned(at least for me): there doesn’t have to be chaos, constant. It isn’t necessary. It isn’t proof. Beyond a crude spit-shine, it does nothing for heart, for soul, for pride, for strength. Contentment is not complacency, and one cannot constantly view their hardship as another chance to hide. Eventually, something will make you still. You will have to face it. Staring down a shadow does not make one famous. The worries do not disappear themselves. The worries are not made of stone; what is malleable, find hands. Take care of your instruments, soften this with them. Shape what comes.