I’m trying to make space. Or perhaps, more accurately, discover space. Space for working, space for re-energizing, space for thinking. The 8-5 work grind has a way of jumbling time and priorities together. My life has become best represented by a confused calendar or a to-do list written in smudged ink, but there’s no focus without clarity, and I’m becoming conceptually claustrophobic.
Before I had a car, I walked to my local library on my lunch break. I quickly realized that my break was better spent somewhere other than my place of work. I huffed up the same hill every day to sit in a vinyl seat across from towering glass windows. The library wasn’t always quiet and it wasn’t always empty, but I always found a bubble in which I could exist—just for a little bit—by myself.
Then I got a car, and the radius got bigger. I could go to a whole new town to find space. I could drive a road through multiple towns and exist in the space between. I traveled this radius in every direction, carving out little nooks along the way, but never staying long. Then I found a new spot next to a lake.
I had 30 minutes of sitting in the grass, the sun on my skin, and the breeze playing with my hair. I listened to kids wade into the water and watched dogs patter along the shore. I’ve never been particularly good at meditation, but with the right conditions, I can be lulled into it. Sometimes, if you sit still enough, you can feel the earth move around you.
My 30 minutes of summer is dying. The kids are back in school instead of in the water. The dogs are not there anymore, and the picnic tables are left barren. I still won’t sit at them. Instead, I sit in the warmth of my car and wonder where I’ll go next. Back to the library perhaps. Perhaps somewhere I’ve never been before. Hopefully somewhere warm, somewhere silent, and somewhere I have space to simply be.
