The boy on the oak stair

I am going to slow down in the coming new year.

At some point, the sail of my life caught strong winds that pushed my vessel across choppy waters. With gusts on my back propelling me forward, I stopped seeing—truly seeing—things that gave me peace.

When I was a kid, I remember watching the transition from summer to fall. Sometime in early September, I saw the first few leaves of the Bigleaf on my street turn from a bright green to a soft yellow. Each day, more leaves would join the colorful transformation; orange and red too, and by early October, the first leaves would fall to the ground. I remember watching The Cycle from the window near the staircase that led to my bedroom upstairs. I sat on the hard oak stairway, watching this with reverence as each leaf glided to the base of the tree.

I stopped seeing things like this until last Saturday.

I was up early. Paisley, our fourteen-pound Maltese-Terrier mix, joined my early morning coffee-making routine, as she always does. While the coffee brewed, I fed Paisley, let her outside to use the bathroom, and opened the shades to reveal our small backyard. With her morning mission complete, Paisley returned indoors, looked at me, snuffled, and scurried upstairs to lie at the feet of my still sleeping wife, Claire.

I poured my coffee and sat on the couch, sipping and trying to be in the moment, though my thoughts raced with adult stuff. I looked out the window. Our east-to-west-facing backyard was beginning to nibble on the first morsels of sunlight. I watched as the warm rays of the sun slowly moved across the fine fescues in our yard, causing the previous night's frost to lose its glassy sheen. As the cold sheet dissipated, wispy steam rose, swirling and twirling into the dawn air. For a moment, all the adult stuff was quiet. I watched in stillness, and I felt humbled.

In the silence of a Saturday morning, the sails were doused, and the boat was adrift on still waters.

When I have this kind of peace, time is unknown to me; it exists, but the tick of it is a friend and not an adversary to the storms of grown-up things. Whether steam from melting frost, or a colorful leaf falling from a tree, The Cycle around us signals the truth of all living things. I am at peace with The Cycle.

I will slow down this new year. I will remember the boy on the oak stair and have friendship with stillness.