Be still

(PC: christopher cornelius via Flickr)

You ever just need to get away? Just go for a walk, get some air, grab a coffee or hot chocolate and sit. Maybe you think about things or you think about nothing, but you want to just be in a moment, just for yourself. I have those days. The kind of day where I like to be alone, either with a notebook or just music and just be. Be still.


I have those days either because of an upsetting incident or I just woke up in that kind of mood, to just be still. When I have that feeling I always go to my haven: Park Slope. I go to Barnes and Noble or Starbucks. But today felt like a Cocoa Bar kind of day. I didn’t need coffee; I needed the comfort of chocolate.

The cashier seemed high off chocolate fumes, delighted to be there to serve me. I ordered a medium dark hot chocolate with one homemade marshmallow, and paid close to $6 for the concoction. Only in New York can you get away with that. I settled myself in the corner of the expanded area and got cozy with my laptop, music and dark hot chocolate.

The café is as warm as my dark hot chocolate. All of the furniture is brown or hunter green and the tables and chairs are designed to look like trees. There are oil paintings of people with long legs and big feet around the room. Even the colors and tones of the paintings match the furniture. The ceiling slants to the right, meanwhile the paintings slant to the left. 

The ambiance in this place isn’t like a Starbucks, it isn’t like a bookstore; it’s like your living room. It feels like you’re settled in the corner of your living room with the lights on dim and you have a wood-wick candle burning off the smell of amber.

Being still in this place is calming my heart. It is settling my thoughts and nerves.

Normally, I would impulse buy a book and cramp up my bookshelf that’s really there to showcase my emotions. Instead, I’m learning to use my words and just write it out. Like people say to walk it off, I write it off. I write away my mood, I write away my worries, I write.

It’s better to express how you’re feeling rather than holding it in and taking it out on people or on your wallet. When I was a kid I would hold my breath until my face turned red and it just gave me headaches. Don’t hold in, breathe and release your stress.

Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.

Yes, my soul, find rest in God; my hope comes from him.

He says, “Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.”

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