Tag: space to breathe

Quiet

The world is quiet out on the canal.
Maybe there’ll be traffic in the distance. Maybe there’ll be the odd cyclist, or the odd bird tweeting from somewhere. The occasional boat passing.
But for the most part, the world is quiet.
When it’s not raining, it’s nice to sit out front as you travel and to just watch the world go by.
Sometimes a book helps the time pass, but sometimes you just sit there and watch.
I read somewhere that everything on earth is made from stardust.
It wasn’t an academic source in any way – in fact, I think it was in fanfiction, but I suppose in someways, it’s true. If you can consider the elements stardust, that is.
But when the sun shines through the trees, and the sunlight glitters on the water, that is when I see it the most. That is when I can look at the world and agree. When the world is quiet, and when the world glitters, I can believe that it is made of stardust.
I like when the world is quiet.
It’s one of the only times I start to feel at peace.
With the constant hectic rush and noise of this world, it helps to have some quiet time away from it all.
Something shatters it, of course – someone talking too loudly, or a noise startles me out of the reverie in which I find myself, but until that moment, the world is quiet, and life is good.
Being on the canal is good for feeling at peace.
The water is so still, and so smooth against the boat pushing through.
Maybe you’ll catch sight of a fish jumping out of the water, or birds flying off as your boat approaches, hopping from perch to perch until you catch up and pass by, or until they fly away from the foliage around the canal and the noise of the boat’s engine.
You’re away from online communication, away from most contact, away from the peace-disrupting politics of this world.
You’re away from the pressures of everyday life, and away from the usual expectations that come with it.
Time on the canal is so quiet.
Travel time is slow, but there’s so much space to think and be quiet and away, it can feel like you suddenly have all the time in the world.
Sometimes I miss it when I’m not on the canal, even though the times when I am on the canal are a rarity. Other times, I’m glad I’m not on the canal; but that tends to be when the weather is cold and miserable.
Most of the times I’ve been on the canal have been in the summer.
Of course, in Britain, as I am, the weather can be poor even in summer time.
There have been many days when we’ve either barely moved or haven’t moved at all because of the bad weather, but I’ve had my fair share of beautiful, peaceful days while I’ve been on the canal, travelling what feels like a long way during the day, maybe operating locks if there are any, maybe driving the boat, maybe just sitting and watching the world go by, enveloped in the peace and gentleness this form of holiday can bring.
These days are the best days, days when I can simply enjoy being there and not have to think about the world off the canal.
Days in which I can just enjoy the quiet of the canal.

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Disappear

Have you ever felt the need to disappear?
Not in the runaway sense of the word.
Disappear as in to separate yourself from the world, just for a while, to think and breathe and simply be?
In which you don’t want to do anything in particular, don’t even want to be anywhere, but just put some distraction on in the background and feel as though your very being is just invisible? To feel as though you take up space and yet at the same time take up no space at all? To have some time in which to step away from the pressures of everyday life and to just block things out for a while?
I do.
Often it ends up eating into my time to work or sleep, but with the full-on nature of my current general week, this time is the time I need to keep me sane.
Maybe I’ll fill it with music in the background and admin time, maybe I’ll put music on in the background and read, but I’ll always need that space to just be.
Sometimes I’ll be at home, so it’ll be ok, but other times, if I’m in the middle of something at uni, it becomes very difficult.
I have a fidget cube, which does wonders for my hands that feel a near constant need to fidget, but there’s only so much I can do when I don’t have it.
Once I had just come out of a tutorial. The tutorial itself wasn’t inherently bad, but it was made plain that I needed to sort out some of my working and time-structuring priorities, something I was already aware of.
Those tutorials had always been intense, meaning every time I came out of them I ended up giving a sigh of release of the pressures expected of me. This week, despite my work itself pleasing my tutor, I felt as though I had let everyone down and I just needed to disappear for a while.
Desperately so.
So I went to the library, found a seat in a quiet zone. I put on a film soundtrack that I generally find calming and relaxing, I did admin to sort out my working hours, and I felt invisible for a while. Then the soundtrack ended and that feeling came back, so I put it on again, and it helped, a bit.
I let myself just be for a while.
Familiar, comfortable music, little to no communication with other people, a steadily emptying library, finishing my admin, and letting my thoughts loose for a while before moving on to do something else I enjoyed.
And it helped, it really did.
I always dread those times in which I don’t have the time or space I need to calm my soul for a while. The relief I feel when I’m finally able to vanish back into my own little world is unbelievably strong.
If you need to disappear for while, if you can, go and do it. It’s better to have time to yourself to let your soul calm down than it is to try to push through too far.
Everyone needs a break once in a while.
Everyone needs a time to disappear.
Let yourself be.

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