Being-in-place

It was a busy weekend. After it, I felt tired. I heard myself say to my friend after the Tuesday Pilates class, “I feel like I need to sit on the beach and do nothing.”

Luckily I heard myself say that and did not push it away. I took myself to the bay (see previous post). I walked along the long beach and back. I sat on the bench and let myself be there.

I have a word that I use in my journal for this kind of experience. Being-in-place.

It’s like one of those lovely German compounds that puts together small words to make a new one that is more than the sum of its parts. I still remember my first encounter with such a compound, in an early German lesson, literally translated as the on-the-corner-standing-man.

Anyway, that’s what I was doing, being-in-place. I felt the warmth of the sun, I listened to the rippling  waves, I noticed the small four-petalled yellow flower that held itself up against the indigo blue of the sea. Dogs and their owners came and went. I wrote in my notebook. I sat there until I found myself getting up.

I realized how long it had been since I did that. And how much I missed it, needed it.

What experience of being-in-place restores you? What experience of being-in-place are you missing, and could you offer yourself this week?