I don’t want to ‘lean in’—I want to lie down.
—Ali Wong
I’m a big proponent of rest and I’ve been taking time to lie down for 10 minutes in the middle of the day and do nothing. I’ve finally learned an important lesson: Rest allows for sustainable productivity and creativity.
I have been incredibly stubborn in my belief that the answer to every problem in life is to work more, try harder, dig deeper, never stop moving. And no matter how hard any friend or loved one tried to turn me around and show me a better way, I just didn’t listen. I wasn’t ready. There was so much pain to work through, first, before I could begin to let go and rest.
But I am in a new place now and there is so much room to breathe.
Do you know that magical feeling when you are in the right place at the right time? Doing what you are meant to do? Those times when you have goosebumps because life is so deeply meaningful?
When I tiptoe through the grass, wet from last night’s rain, in the yard of the house with the huge blooming magnolia tree, it takes my breath away. How does this tree thrive in the middle of chaos? The house is abandoned. The yard untended. Branches broken from the heavy snow of January. How much beauty can I hold? All of it, I hope.
When I walk around the old country cafe, painted sherbet pink, I love the lines and shapes. I am puzzled by the two small air conditioning units side-by-side. Maybe this was in the heart of the kitchen where temperatures run high?
Placing these two photos next to one another, I feel spring in my bones. So much has changed and shifted since I started trusting my body.