A Very Good Year

A few years ago, I had a line from T. S. Eliot’s Four Quartets tattooed down my leg. It was the most beautiful thing I’d ever read—at the still point of the turning world—which completely consumed me then (and now, still).

Perhaps it was because I craved stillness. I was chasing, always. Running for as long as I can remember, moving, churning breathlessly, never stopping. I convinced myself that sleep was for the dead; that rest was for the weak. It took moving my life across the country to unlearn it all.

Slowness is still new to me. But now, I’m beginning to understand.

“… at the still point, there the dance is, But neither arrest nor movement. And do not call it fixity, Where past and future are gathered. Neither movement from nor towards, Neither ascent nor decline. Except for the point, the still point, There would be no dance, and there is only the dance.”

Here’s to 30.

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xx