Quiet. Sometimes it's found in a cove, where soft sand lies under foot and gentle waves soak the shore. Sometimes, though, it's found in a space of time, removed from obligation and set apart. Where once there was necessary engagement and focus, now there is room for quiet, for rest, for meaningful instruction. For riding along in the back seat down a dappled country road.
It was a couple years ago, but I still remember her words as if she'd just spoken them. This woman of regard, established in her career, said she was taking a sabbatical for the month of July. A sabbatical. For those who wonder, it means this: Time-off taken to reflect or seek inner growth; to renew. To learn something not in your current state of mind; a quest for enlightenment outside your normal routine. It sounded so decadent, so restful... and so hard to imagine that something like this could possibly happen for me. Mostly, I believed that, just like across-the-pond voyages, sabbaticals were for other people, the people who had the means to afford those kinds of things.
But, like the most diminutive of seeds, this tiny hope fell to a secret place and quietly waited there. In recent weeks, it began to sprout. The drawing toward sabbatical manifested itself more and more each day, the image of it developing before my eyes, until I could see what it could look like for me.
Mine wouldn't happen in a mountain cabin, or big city hotel, remote from my world. Mine would be found right here in our own cabin next to the creek. Not necessarily a disengagement from all of life (motherhood and all), mine would be more of a necessary aside from outside obligations, a quieting of the calendar, a tucking-in. A listening, then doing, then listening again.
This is it, and it's entirely possible. With quiet anticipation, here I go. In the coming weeks, you may find a slightly different cadence here on the blog. That's a good thing. Come along with me.
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