Stationary

I have the strong desire to write a new post.  I'm not sure why.  I've been uninterested in doing so for over a year now.  But tonight with only one hand, I'm feeling enough of an urge to lead me to plunk at the individual letters on the keyboard at a rate half of what I'm used to in order to create this.  While doing so, I've opened Pandora.  I've not listened to music on Pandora for over two years now.  Upon opening, I looked through the 20+ stations I'd created in the span of six or seven years and I recalled the various times in my life.  The times that lead me to create these stations because the music somehow reflected an emotion I felt or an experience I had or I simply delighted in the particular style of organization in the sounds.  I have found these small paths that I'd created years before and I allowed myself to travel down some of them, to remember these times in my life.  Music is powerful and I can tell this is going to be a reflective post.

(I'm typing with one hand because my other's elbow is broken from an accident.  I will write other details about that another time.  Though whether it will be on here is yet to be determined.)

I've become much more immobile than normal because of this broken elbow.  If you look up synonyms of immobile you find words like immovable, stagnant, static, stationary, nailed down.  I honestly cringe at ALL these words.  They make me feel heavy, stuffed, unable to breathe, fearful of being them one day.  You see, less than 20% of my adult life has been spent in one place with one job with the same people in my life (that I'd see on a regular basis).  In other terms of thinking about it, I've only spent about a year and a half "settled down". 

I love to be moving, fading in and out, experiencing the ebb and flow, the coming and going.  I love riding the wave until it takes me onto the shore and then running along the beach which leads to the forest I walk in until I reach the foot of the mountain I climb and the cliff I jump off of into new waters.  I love this rhythm, each new experience and discovery of myself, others, and the world.

That's why stagnant, immobile, stationary make me flinch.  There's nothing changing, moving, leading onward.  There's no new experience.  There's no learning.  There's no growth.

But we all know this is not entirely true.

If you look up synonyms for immobile you also find words like anchored, at rest, rooted, stable.  These words put me at ease.  They make me think of one who, despite the moving and chaos around, is grounded.  One who may experience the coming and going, the ebb and flow of life yet is unscathed by it.   There is nothing stagnant about this person.  They fully embrace life at each moment but with  Perspective that allows them to remain and to be.

Stationary is a good word to describe my life right now.  There's about a two mile radius that my life circles around in for work, home, and doctor's appointments.  I've not sat in a coffee shop over the weekends (which is unheard of).  I've not ridden my bike or ran in three weeks now (I was doing one or the other, sometimes both, everyday).  I've not explored any new places or been to the beach in this time.  I make it to work and then home where I stay in.  A good amount of my conversations revolve around one topic, my broken elbow (people are always asking what happened, I don't mind too much, it's just a nailed down conversation flow).  I think I've spent more time with my bed than out and about with people.   I'm just using these to illustrate my point (not so you'll feel sorry for me).  In fact, when I can finally exercise it'll have to be on a stationary bike at first (maybe the elliptical if I'm lucky).  It's difficult for me to cook, clean, shower, etc. as I can't move my elbow.  This is how immobile that one part of me makes the whole of me.  

All this to say that the words that make me cringe about being stuck in one place don't have to apply.  As I start to feel stagnant from being unable to move about how I please, it doesn't mean I'm going nowhere.  It doesn't mean that there's no growth or life or experience or learning taking place.  Maybe in this time it can mean that a groundedness could be learned, that roots could be grown deep, that despite chaos of life an Anchor could be firmly held.  So yes, I may love to jump from one experience in life to another but in this time (even if it is a short season of time) I can fully embrace the lack of movement, rest in the stationary, remain and be.