Still Life

still (noun)

1. deep silence and calm;stillness
2. an ordinary static photograph as opposed to a motion picture, especially a single shot from a movie.

The other day, when I was walking by the table in our living room, I found a mess on the coffee table. My first reaction was annoyance, but, as I surveyed the contents of the table, I realized it was an example of a still life. It perfectly represented our lives as we try to be true to ourselves and our beliefs about lives well lived.

The mess was created on a slow, Sunday morning. We brought our coffee and bagels into the living room, turned on some music, and each settled into our own forms of stillness.

We listened to Florence and the Machine because we all love her music and we just took our daughter to her first concert to see them. My old Walkman is on the table because my daughter has decided it is "cool" to have it and listen to our collection of 1980s and 1990s CDs. (Who knew she would be the envy of all of her friends, carrying around that bulky, old thing instead of listening to music on her smart phone?)

I read The Art of Gathering: How We Meet and Why It Matters, which I think will take my embroidery classes to a new level.

My husband read How We Work: Live Your Purpose, Reclaim Your Sanity, and Embrace the Daily Grind, about applying mindfulness to work.

My daughter read Wicked because she saw it on stage when we were in London. When she got tired of reading, the craft supplies came out.

What we left behind on that table was a little piece of each of us, a representation of our personal still life. Our interests in that moment. Our memories of past experiences and our hopes for the future. All of it put on a messy table in the middle of our living room.

I didn't clean it up. It's still sitting there, waiting for us to come back this weekend and reconnect with the calm, the stillness. 

Tell me...where do you find stillness in these busy times?