Quiet

Good evening Friends. I hope today was all that you needed it to be. Today was sure better for me. And for that I am thankful. My days typically are just filled with rush and hurry. For someone really trying to live slowly, that kinda throws a wrench in things. But the evenings are just lovely. A time for me to pause my brain and ease my way into nighttime slumber. I just wish that slumber came easy. Sleep most nights is not my friend. I can go 5 or 6 nights on about 3 hours of sleep each night. But oh how glorious that crash night is when it finally arrives. I think I could sleep though a plow coming busting in the front door. We count our little blessings, right? Well, that crash night is my little blessing. I’d just like to sleep like my husband a couple of nights a week. The man’s head hits the pillow and its snore city. He barely rolls over at night. I don’t know whether to be so thankful that he rests so well or so mad that I want to wake him and let him suffer through it with me lol. Honestly, I’m so joyed that he can rest. It makes my heart happy that our home gives him enough peace that he can lay down at night and sleep. Don’t get me wrong, my house is my peace, I just am not now, nor ever have I been a good sleeper.

Let’s talk about peace for a few minutes. When I was a little girl I would spend the weekends at my grandparents house. We loved them so much and looked forward to heading home with them on Friday evenings after my mom would “fix” my mamaw’s hair in her beauty shop. Mamaw was a night owl. She stayed up every night until way up in the morning. She would watch her tv programs and read recipe magazines. She’d do her laundry and wash her dishes. She did her house work at night as well minus running the vacuum as to not wake papaw. He was certainly not a night owl. As soon as the sun went down he was ready for bed. And he woke up at the crack of dawn literally no later than 5 am. I remember smelling coffee early in the morning and just rolling over and going back to sleep. He would have drank an entire pot of coffee before we even thought of showing our face. We were snoozing away and most of his chores were almost complete. I always thought I wanted to be like my mamaw when I became an adult. I figured I would stay up to the wee hours of the morning and do all the things. Then sleep until noon and not miss a beat. Weeelllll…… life laughs at you sometimes. My weekly routine has me out of bed and getting ready for my day at 4:30 am every week day. I’m out in my yard at 4:45 with the lights all bundled up taking the dog out to pee. Dale is defiantly not laying in the bed if I’m not in the room. Yes, my little schnauzer sleeps in the bed with us. Yes he is extremely spoiled but, when I adopted him I promised to give him the best life and that’s what I will do. Honestly I’m probably up and going before anyone else on my street even rolls over to hit snooze on their alarm. My siblings make fun of me because I’m cozied down in my bed by 8:30 or 9 at night. No staying up to watch the eleven o clock news for this gal. I go to bed when I’m tired because I cherish those few hours of sleep. I need my time to meditate and relax at night before I finally drift off. My mamaw didn’t work. She was a housewife for most of her life. She worked early on but once she had children she took care of them and their home. And she did a damn fine job at it if I do say so myself. She was extremely particular with her home and she worked every day to keep it where she wanted it to be. By the way, being a homemaker is a job. It’s a very important one. And I truly admire women (or men) who choose to stay at home and care for their families. It just wasn’t in the cards for me. As I said I look forward to my slow evenings and weekends. My down time is so important to me. Now, as a middle aged woman, I think back on the late nights my mamaw spent doing her chores and I think she just enjoyed the quiet. The silence that comes along with being the only person awake in the house. Just breathing and meditating while taking care of your home. I understand why she did it.

Aren’t we blessed to have a home? Each morning when I wake up a I pray over my day. I don’t have a good or productive day if I don’t bless it first. My time to do all the chores is in the morning. Its my time to scrub my kitchen down and get everything aligned for the day. I get my meals prepped for the day and the evening. And those bundled up mornings taking Dale out to do his business even though cold and dark, they are quiet. We live in the county so there aren’t dozens of street lights and there’s not a lot of traffic. Some mornings it’s just the moon and the stars. Most days we get a deer or five in the field in front of the house and if we are lucky we will have some in the yard. No noise. Its peaceful and its still. It’s quiet. In the summer I take my cup of coffee and just sit on the porch to just enjoy the quiet. It’s an unwind before the day starts. And when I feel the fresh air and look up at the moon I understand why my mamaw longed for the quiet.

My husband and I vacation in Hilton Head, SC. It’s our place. Our paradise right here on earth. For me, it’s the closest place I have to heaven. We’ve vacationed there twice per year for the last almost 10 years. We stay in the same condo complex. We’ve become friends with locals and folks that live in the complex full time. It really is our second home and truth be told we’d love to make it our true part of the year home in the future. For the last several years, I’ve made it a point to rise early and walk on the beach to watch the sunrise. Then, if I’m tired, I will come back and go back to bed a while. If you’ve never experienced a sunrise over a vast ocean, please do yourself a favor and do that. The color that the sun spreads across the ocean is pretty spectacular. Its like God just opens a blind on the day. His way of saying “it’s time to wake up and by the way look at what I can do”. Typically those early morning walks are only accompanied by a hand full of other folks. Most people go on vacation to sleep in so the beach s rarely crowded that early in the morning. You can hear the waves so much more vibrantly. That constant roar that’s similar to white noise. Calming and soothing. It just makes me want to inhale the salt and exhale anything negative that has impacted me for my entire life. It’s just quiet.

Have you ever sat outside and just felt peace? Of have you even enjoyed the early am or late night when you are the only person awake in your house? If I could encourage you to do anything, it would be to take the time in your day to enjoy quiet. Early or late. Mid day even. Quietness brings peace in a way that I can’t explain. Turn off the tv and for goodness sake put down the phone. Grab a cup of coffee or whatever it is you sip on, and find a quiet place to just sit and breathe. Use that time to pray or meditate or just calm the hurry in your brain. To me that quiet is self care. And the older I get the more I crave it. No talking. No noise. No screens. Just quiet.

Tonight as your drift in to slumber I pray that each of you experience your quiet. I pray that if gives you inner peace and a renewed strength. Happy dreams sweet friends. Happy dreams.

Always…….Brooke