The hardest thing for me to do is sitting still, so when I have a chance to do so, I do. When planning my first (real & no-work, no-computer) vacation, I promised myself — I will learn to just sit still.
And that is what I did. I just sat on a bench, in the shadow of vines older than my apartment building in San Francisco. My feet touched the cold stones, brown and green with age and moss, shaped by wind and moisture, and a countless number of people who might have walked on them. The wood of the bench showed its many years, much like the creases on the face of a wizard.
I wondered about how many and who sat there before me, looking straight ahead into an olive grove, prevented from running wild by those who tended for them. Did others wonder about the almost regal Italian Cypresses, elegant and slim, much like the beautiful ladies I saw the other day in a Florence.
I just sat there, watching sun play hide and seek with the clouds, some dark, swollen with moisture and others, just fluffy and pristine, adding to the backdrop. An angry bee buzzed overhead, grasshoppers made the noise they make and birds chirped. There are so many of them. And I can’t tell which bird is making what call — I am too urban for my own good. All I could tell was the flutter of pigeons flying off in a hurry, muttering loudly, as if they had something important to do.
I sat and sat, saw sun flirt with the green hills – turning them bright green one moment and then painting them a dark shade of dark, green. Vineyards, farms and thick woodlands — just there, not moving, not going anywhere, but just standing still like god’s mannequins. I didn’t think. My mind slowed down to crawl. My eyes just saw. My body felt the air, warm a minute, cool the next. The ears just trying to listen to the universe. I did nothing. I was sitting still.
It still is the hardest thing to do.
Sitting still is doing a lot. Especially when it’s part of a broader practice. “Awareness” is often thrown in as an attempt to name part of this work, but it can go in diverse directions.
Unless it’s a Seinfeld joke, sitting still isn’t doing nothing.
And yet so much happens while you sit still
Amen to that @whataboutmylife89
Hopefully, there still is a campground in Bivigliano, north of Firenze, and still owned by a group of Nenni socialists. A summer retreat for activists and intellectuals, workers and students from around Tuscany.
I spent a quiet, satisfying month camped there over 40 years ago – alternating between hikes or strolls through summer countryside and riding the rural bus route down to the tourist bustle in Firenze. Political and cultural fires in my mind fueled by discussions with young local activists on the verge of governing an urbanscape centuries in the making. Works of Michaelangelo punctuating every neighborhood. Yet, nothing could be more restful than the slow peace of farming communities surrounding that cultural battery.
The bus stop was in front of a village bakery. Still warm schiacciata all’olio sold through a window open to the main street. Folks from the village taking the bus to work in the city chuckling because we were eating it up for breakfast while they saved theirs to supplement lunch. A typical, restful, 2-hour Tuscan lunch.
Good times.
Ed
I had no idea about that compound but will put it on my future visit to-do list. Thanks for sharing the story.
For me Italy is passion, even in stillness. As demonstrated.
Eckhart Tolle in “The Power of Now” is talking about the same stillness and how to achieve it every day, might be something you’re interested in. But yes, it’s one of the hardest things to do.