Still-life with Cows

This weekend, one leg of a long road trip took me through dairy county. Every place I looked, left and right, ahead and behind, there were cows: grazing cows, cows on the fence line, cows laying down, cows butting heads, cows alone and cows in groups. I drove through miles of variations on this view. It felt a bit like I was viewing a series of repetitive, pastoral paintings: cow with sky, cow and grass, cow in pasture, cow with cloud. They were all still-lives with cows, and I was in motion, driving through it all.

Eventually, I reached my destination, got out of my vehicle and unpacked my bags for a few days. I was still thinking of the cows when I finally stopped and settled in after a day of non-stop motion, all focused on getting HERE. I parked myself in a chair on an outside deck, still at last. I thought more about those cows. They certainly looked placid. If I permitted myself to read into what I was seeing, I'd have said "content" or "peaceful." Well, here I was, finally sitting still like the cows I had been envying, but my mind was in motion. I'd gotten out of the car, but I hadn't stopped moving, not really.

Today I asked a friend who had returned from vacation how her trip was. She said "Non stop," or the equivalent of that. Yes, I have had vacations like that: non stop. They can be wonderful experiences. But I have a day off today, right in the middle of the week, and I am choosing "full stop" instead of "non stop."

Today, I am returning to that spot on the deck. I am not taking a book. I am not taking a device. I will remains still (at least for a while), and the birds, the insects, the animals, the clouds . . . I will watch them all continue in motion around me, while I remain stationary. My prayer is that when my body stops, my mind will follow, or at least that it will slow down a bit more. I could practice a mindfulness technique, true, but even that feels like too much motion. I think that part of us knows how to be still, remembers this as part of its nature, but we too seldom take the opportunity to access that still place and make space for it.

Here I will sit, a living still life, watching the world unfolding around me, and knowing it is enough. It has always been enough.