Writing my muse

The Sit Spot

I’m not accustomed to sitting. I can’t sit for very long to read a book, or to watch a movie. I rattle between opposing forces: a whirly mind atop a motionless body. Thoughts churn like a to-do list, adding and subtracting, and they always seem to be in motion, but never gain traction.

I wonder where it is that I want to go.

There is a place in the woods that offers rest. It’s a small spot that nourishes awareness and homes in on the senses. It’s where patterns in nature are noticed: a collection of birds, the movement of deer, the rustling of the oaks, a change.

It is a sit spot.

And it is there where I want to be.

It’s not a fancy term but one of simplicity. A sit spot is a place in nature that is often visited.

I think of how a small spot offers its space in peace, provides a dose of mental health, and a calm spirit. By taking a seat on a fallen log and observing the environment, overloaded circuits in the brain break to receive stimulation of a different sort. Sit spots weave mindfulness and nature.

Poet Mary Oliver comes to mind. Turn to any page in her books, Devotions or Upstream, and you can not only feel and see and hear where she is, but also understand how she came to be there as she pulls words from the air of innocence and organizes them for meaning. Her sit spots are endless, and from them she brings to our laps places like unearthed gems from the natural world.

“Instructions for living a life.

Pay attention.

Be astonished.

Tell about it.”

― Mary Oliver

Sit spots are bright spots tucked away within a naked landscape, open and vulnerable. They are forever giving of their time and place and offer a hand in connection and belonging.

A berth carved to sit, to wonder, to dream.