1. Driving in the country without music.
2. Getting lost planting.
3. Allowing yourself to enjoy a hayfever hangover.
4. Finding yourself listening to an engaging interview on the radio.
5. Holding your partner as he/she sleeps.
6. Lingering in a room that’s bereft of electronic gadgets.
7. Doing something unexpectedly good for a stranger.
8. Living a day without newspapers.
9. Lying on floorboards listening to a great record (possibly with a glass of wine on hand).
10. Watching a pet sleep.
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17 comments
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November 23, 2010 at 9:16+00:00Nov
Agnes
Lying on the grass watching the clouds, with headphones.
Cliched perhaps, but still awesome.
November 26, 2010 at 9:16+00:00Nov
Nigel Featherstone
Hi Agnes, yep, you’d get stillness there, especially if Sigur Ros, M83 or Arvo Part were in the cans!
November 23, 2010 at 9:16+00:00Nov
isaddictedtothemusic
I enjoyed this, Nigel.
There’s this song of Nick Drake’s that has always had me thinking of stillness. It can be heard here:
November 26, 2010 at 9:16+00:00Nov
Nigel Featherstone
Hi Addicted. Love Nick Drake, but I’d not hearn ‘Horn’ before. Brilliant. Certainly very, very still.
November 23, 2010 at 9:16+00:00Nov
screamish
the last comment “isaddicted to music” reminded me…
– lying on a mattress on the floor of your children’s room, listening to an old Nick Drake cassette played on a tape recorder that you bought for 5 euros at a car boot sale specifically for that purpose, watching them fall asleep, while writing to an old old friend until you stop, suspended between sleep and awake… rain on the window panes as autumn slides into winter…
November 26, 2010 at 9:16+00:00Nov
Nigel Featherstone
Hi Screamish, ahh the stillness that happens when you’ve just finished hand-writing a letter. Fantastic.
Interesting that Nick Drake’s popping up in this comment string. Didn’t anticipate that at all.
Then again, what do we anticipate when we post?
November 24, 2010 at 9:16+00:00Nov
Ms. Moon
Stopping in the woods as I walk. Holding my grandson as he sleeps. Fingers poised over keyboard, my mind not still at all.
November 26, 2010 at 9:16+00:00Nov
Nigel Featherstone
Hi Ms Moon, ‘fingers poised over keyboard, my mind not still at all’. That’s gold.
November 24, 2010 at 9:16+00:00Nov
Gabrielle Bryden
Lovely list – I only disagree with the first one – haha (gotta have the music, but you can still stop the car and have a walk without the music). I love that time in the afternoon, after a nap, when you feel rested and slowly aware of your surroundings, and the light is just right.
November 26, 2010 at 9:16+00:00Nov
Nigel Featherstone
Hi Gabrielle, oh yes, the wonderful just-right light. Funny, there’s this brilliant early morning light that’s just coming through my front door which is open. I keep on stopping and looking.
But it’s gone now.
The day’s moved on already.
For the briefest of moment there was just a little stillness.
November 24, 2010 at 9:16+00:00Nov
TF
I needed a reminder and a few ideas, Nigel. Thank you.
November 26, 2010 at 9:16+00:00Nov
Nigel Featherstone
You’re welcome, Tristan. Go forth and be still.
December 2, 2010 at 9:16+00:00Dec
mia
Inside of Eggs
Inside, focus soft shadows trail.
Light permeates, warms, passes
Through thinnest, through brittle.
Fluid is salty, viscous, dampens sound
Sunshine is not still, is fleet. Mute,
wetness waits for suffocating air,
For stretching wings, for stumbling first steps
when love is eaten from mother’s mouth
in clutches, in tender, struggling gulps.
But for now, Stillness is inside,
where bird begins dreaming,
imagines the open sky waiting.
December 2, 2010 at 9:16+00:00Dec
Nigel Featherstone
Mia! That’s just beautiful! Stillness surely is ‘inside’.
December 4, 2010 at 9:16+00:00Dec
broadsideblog
Nick Drake , for sure.
Sitting on my 6th floor balcony staring up into the blue sky, watching clouds form and re-form within minutes.
Standing in front of an amazing work of art or painting while everyone else swirls and eddies around you.
Lying in bed this morning watching the windows on the other side of the river catch and hold the brilliant pink of the sunrise. Brief beauty.
Lovely post. Such an under-rated and essential part of life.
December 4, 2010 at 9:16+00:00Dec
Nigel Featherstone
Thanks Broadside. And I love your additions to the list. Stillness can be in the smallest of things.
December 20, 2010 at 9:16+00:00Dec
There’s still time to dwell « Under the counter or a flutter in the dovecot
[…] Canberra Times, 18 December 2010. Many thanks to those who commented on an earlier post, called ‘Where stillness is’ – the on-line discussion fed into the writing of the piece for the newspaper, which is rather […]