stillness and being

Driving to work today I noticed the world as though I was in it for the first time. Against the stillness of my seated driving position I was keenly aware of the movement and dynamism of the world around me, of the flowing thoughts and emotions that moved through me, of the flexing and relaxing of my muscles, and of the bony structure that held them up. And I noticed. The man leaning to his dog at the traffic lights, talking to him while his pooch grinned back, pink tongue lolling to the side and brown eyes gazing. I noticed the ratcheting sound of a steering wheel lock being opened and wedged in a parked car as I passed, I noticed, with pleasure, how long a traffic light stays green when you accept that it doesn’t matter if you miss it, and I noticed the agitation and aggression of a people in big cars—much like myself in unaware moments—a woman contorting her neck to check her face in her side mirror, driving with her arm hanging out of the window, or the crew-cutted ray-banned frog-man incensed that I passed him.

I imagined being merely a consciousness moving through this bustling world, an essence of stillness as the rest flashed by me. From there I could notice myself and my own neuroses and obsessions. I could notice how little things mattered and how little I was in a bigger and most amazing scheme. The drive escaped my attention completely—and all the worries I got into the car with evaporated as noticeable thoughts moving with the surrounding ebb and flow of other peoples’ and things. And for the first time in a long time, instead of a background hum of white noise, I noticed an underlying stillness that was alive and pulsing but at peace, poised but unmoving, a silence that anchored the buzzing energy. And it was, I thought, a great thing to notice on my way back to work.