An Idea Some Day

 I’m old enough to remember the pre-internet days when silence and boredom were a thing. But I'm still young enough to embrace internet culture. (I often say my generation straddles the two worlds - pre-internet and now) Anyway... for years, I listened to podcasts and audiobooks whenever I was doing something like driving our household chores. It was a way to squeeze more out of what otherwise felt like dead time. But I’ve come to realise this was not just a way to make such tasks less mundane; it was often also a way to distract myself from my thoughts. But now, with two kids running around the house, I spend much of the day overstimulated, with no time or mental space to think. Too many tabs open in my brain.  So recently I’ve gone back to old-fashioned silence. Driving in silence. Doing chores in silence. Having some time in my head. Sure, podcasts and audiobooks are entertaining and teach me a ton, but creating some white space for my mind has been a game-changer It’s made...

I was up early this morning to take my son to nursery. After I'd cleaned our teeth and got us dressed and he had (almost) finished playing with a pair of plastic plates from his toy kitchen, we stepped outside to be greeted by a beautiful deep red glow hitting the underside of the clouds from the sun laying just below the horizon to the South-East. To the North-West, the almost full moon, now waning, glowed against the rich blue-grey sky. I pointed it out to him, and he returned a smile. I made the two-mile drive to his nursery in silence, looking at the leafless winter trees poking out from the frozen fields along the way. After returning home alone listening to the Battle Hymn of the Republic, I sat on the concrete ledge that runs along our driveway and watched the sun rise in a blaze of glory over the hill ridge, maybe a kilometre away. The stone was cold, but I didn't mind. I had a thick parka on, and I couldn't have felt any colder than the band of horses that were sl...