Thank you. This really resonated with me, particularly your descriptions of what noise looks like in particular (clutter, drama, unrealistic expectations, gender and age cultural demands). In your last piece you had a sentence about avoiding conflict at all costs. I do that too. Until something makes me create a firm boundary. I really appreciate you writing about it. I feel like I’ve spent a lifetime trying to figure this all out. This helps.
Can’t tell you how happy it makes me reading this, you writing this, feeling this, doing this. It IS so hard to identify the noise and chaos once you get used to it. Drama becomes a way of life. To step wayyyy back and see this is so smart and healthy. Here’s to gentle and quiet and authentic (and most definitely to that mad-delicious sounding Hetty recipe.) I subscribe to her newsletter but need to get her books! ❤️
Brava! Although our discovery of boundaries, limits and the choices that go with them are very different; they are the same. An emphatic "no more" to some and a "yes, please" to others. Thank you for articulating the journey so eloquently.
Thank you for this thoughtful reflection on the noise we become inured to - along with the messy process of extracting ourselves with our souls and boundaries healed, acknowledging that there will be much that is discarded. The poem you have shared is so lovely! And your recipe sounds /looks delish. Having both green beans and cauliflower in the fridge, I will be making this - and since you have beans (your sub) in the ingredients list and cauliflower (as in the original) in your directions, I imagine I can muddle through enought to cook them both, LOL.
I remember when my ex-husband and I bought our first house it was on a busy, hilly street headed into town and big trucks with air brakes went by all day and night. My son was born in our room at the front of the house and when he was 13 months old and we moved to our dreamed of farm 17 miles outside of town I worried that he'd struggle to sleep because of the lack of noise. (He was already a horrible sleeper and the prospect of it getting worse terrified me.)
Luckily, he took to it fairly well. But it wasn't that there was no noise, just different. At the time, my best friend was living in Manhattan, across the street from the Expressway and the din of the high-speed traffic was nearly constant. When I would go to visit her I could barely sleep, it was so loud. But then she came to visit us during the season when our neighbor pastured his cows across the street from our house and the cows started lowing to get milked at about 4:30 every morning. She came down in the morning moaning about how loud they were, wondering, How could we sleep with all that noise? It made me laugh.
We do get habituated to the particular noise we surround ourselves with, but being confronted with other people's noise is an illuminating exercise. It wakes us up in a way our own noise likely doesn't anymore, which gives us the opportunity to reflect on our own with some intention.
Congratulations on reducing the noise in your life. It's not easy, as you say. The world resists such efforts. But, to the extent you can, it's absolutely worth it on every level.
Thank you for this insight. This has been on my mind- and when I was talking with a friend in Provincetown, I almost spit out my tea when she said -your comfort zone is not comfort, it is familiar and because it's what you know, you married your mother! Barf! But change is possible, and so is divorce, so I divorced that one and married my father❤️😵💫
Oh how I look forward to your writing, your musings, your sifting and winnowing. It always reminds me of “to tell the truth but slant” - to honor deep truths - swoon- yes, this.
Just a note of thanks and gratitude on this delightfully quiet Sunday.
I read this and exhaled. Softness, quiet, space. These are things I think about daily, truly daily. And things I have an exceptionally hard time getting a grip on. My autistic body years for calm the way my formerly-Christian mind used to yearn for God (except I believe I need calm quite a bit more, and more practically). My wife and I keep moving further away from cities, and have another move yet planned, but the noise seems to follow us anyway. I wonder how you've managed to actually find and keep the quiet you're seeking?
Thank you. This really resonated with me, particularly your descriptions of what noise looks like in particular (clutter, drama, unrealistic expectations, gender and age cultural demands). In your last piece you had a sentence about avoiding conflict at all costs. I do that too. Until something makes me create a firm boundary. I really appreciate you writing about it. I feel like I’ve spent a lifetime trying to figure this all out. This helps.
Yes. Exhale.
I absolutely love your writing and how it causes me to stop, think, and breathe. Thank you ❤️
Can’t tell you how happy it makes me reading this, you writing this, feeling this, doing this. It IS so hard to identify the noise and chaos once you get used to it. Drama becomes a way of life. To step wayyyy back and see this is so smart and healthy. Here’s to gentle and quiet and authentic (and most definitely to that mad-delicious sounding Hetty recipe.) I subscribe to her newsletter but need to get her books! ❤️
Brava! Although our discovery of boundaries, limits and the choices that go with them are very different; they are the same. An emphatic "no more" to some and a "yes, please" to others. Thank you for articulating the journey so eloquently.
Thank you for this thoughtful reflection on the noise we become inured to - along with the messy process of extracting ourselves with our souls and boundaries healed, acknowledging that there will be much that is discarded. The poem you have shared is so lovely! And your recipe sounds /looks delish. Having both green beans and cauliflower in the fridge, I will be making this - and since you have beans (your sub) in the ingredients list and cauliflower (as in the original) in your directions, I imagine I can muddle through enought to cook them both, LOL.
I remember when my ex-husband and I bought our first house it was on a busy, hilly street headed into town and big trucks with air brakes went by all day and night. My son was born in our room at the front of the house and when he was 13 months old and we moved to our dreamed of farm 17 miles outside of town I worried that he'd struggle to sleep because of the lack of noise. (He was already a horrible sleeper and the prospect of it getting worse terrified me.)
Luckily, he took to it fairly well. But it wasn't that there was no noise, just different. At the time, my best friend was living in Manhattan, across the street from the Expressway and the din of the high-speed traffic was nearly constant. When I would go to visit her I could barely sleep, it was so loud. But then she came to visit us during the season when our neighbor pastured his cows across the street from our house and the cows started lowing to get milked at about 4:30 every morning. She came down in the morning moaning about how loud they were, wondering, How could we sleep with all that noise? It made me laugh.
We do get habituated to the particular noise we surround ourselves with, but being confronted with other people's noise is an illuminating exercise. It wakes us up in a way our own noise likely doesn't anymore, which gives us the opportunity to reflect on our own with some intention.
Congratulations on reducing the noise in your life. It's not easy, as you say. The world resists such efforts. But, to the extent you can, it's absolutely worth it on every level.
Oh this is such a good one for right now ❤️
Thank you for this insight. This has been on my mind- and when I was talking with a friend in Provincetown, I almost spit out my tea when she said -your comfort zone is not comfort, it is familiar and because it's what you know, you married your mother! Barf! But change is possible, and so is divorce, so I divorced that one and married my father❤️😵💫
Oh how I look forward to your writing, your musings, your sifting and winnowing. It always reminds me of “to tell the truth but slant” - to honor deep truths - swoon- yes, this.
Just a note of thanks and gratitude on this delightfully quiet Sunday.
I read this and exhaled. Softness, quiet, space. These are things I think about daily, truly daily. And things I have an exceptionally hard time getting a grip on. My autistic body years for calm the way my formerly-Christian mind used to yearn for God (except I believe I need calm quite a bit more, and more practically). My wife and I keep moving further away from cities, and have another move yet planned, but the noise seems to follow us anyway. I wonder how you've managed to actually find and keep the quiet you're seeking?