Finding Peace

Being married to a teacher means school holidays are a time of mayhem for me. Any semblance of routine we have managed to build up over the term goes out the window as we spend our days together either out-and-about or lazing around. The washing and housework slips and by the end of it I’m happy to be left alone to hang washing and mop floors during the day again. Working through these holidays just gone meant that rather than slipping the housework avalanched and by the end of the two weeks I was stressed, overwhelmed and also exhausted from working. Since I’d been working things had changed at home for us all and every member of our family had been unsettled by it. It had been a big change and one that we were not really prepared for. All of a sudden I was dropping my youngest at daycare three days a week instead of taking him riding around the block on his bike. I was waving my husband off on his bike in the mornings rather than dropping him off at work. I was racing through the school gates five minutes after the bell had gone instead of waiting on the grass for him as his classroom door was opened at the end of the day. They were little things but they were making a difference and we were taking some time to adjust.

So on the last weekend of the holidays with only a couple of days before term started again we decided to go away. We booked ourselves into a resort an hour out of town, it was only overnight but it was all we had and it was enough. The drive out there was easy on Friday morning, it’s a beautiful drive we’ve done many times before and with enough snacks packed for the kids it was a peaceful one. The best part was that halfway there reception dropped out and it felt good. I am a self-confessed screen addict. I’ve mentioned before how limiting the kids’ screen time is the bane of my existence and it could be a case of their behaviour bugging me because it mirrors my own. When I’m anxious I pick up my phone, when I’m bored I pick up my phone, when there’s so much to do that I don’t know where to start I pick up my phone, when I’m at my wits end with the boys (you guessed it!!) I pick up my phone. It’s a distraction, its my ‘zoning out’ time and it can also be a major problem. Sometimes I’m scrolling through the same stuff over and over. Sometimes I’m watching TV and scrolling through pinterest or facebook at the same time. I know that it’s bad for my eyes, I’ve recently learned that it’s bad for my neck and I know deep down it’s bad for my kids and my head. When I’m connected and engaged with what’s on my phone screen how can I be connected and engaged with what’s happening in front of me?

Though I know all of these things I find it difficult to limit my screen time so it was a relief to be forced to disconnect for a couple of days. When we got to our villa the first thing I wanted to do was take a photo of the view and post it to instagram. I wanted to share what I was experiencing but I couldn’t so instead I focused on actually experiencing it. I did take the photo but then I put my phone down and I sat and just looked. It was uncomfortable at first, I got up and walked inside then back out and sat several times before we got changed and headed to the pool. As the day went on I picked up my phone less and less and when the boys laid down for their rest I took my pen and book outside and found a rock to sit on. With my feet planted on the earth and a view over the biggest man made lake in the country I wrote peacefully and easily. I breathed in the smells of the bush and listened to the birds conversing. Only days before I had stumbled upon an article on ‘earthing/grounding’ and it had piqued my interest. At the time I had tried to think about how often my feet touched the earth and found that it was hardly ever. I was surprised to find that even while out in the bush it was a struggle to ‘earth’ myself.

It was hot outside and cool inside under the air conditioner, there were paths everywhere there were seats and the grass was crawling with ants. The rock I sat on was hard and unforgiving and as the sun peeked in and out from behind the clouds I felt perspiration dampening the armpits of my shirt. There were so many reasons to go inside and write at the table with my feet swinging underneath the chair or resting on the plastic floorboards, but I didn’t. I sat in the shadiest place I could find, alternating between hard rock and spiky grass with the occasional ant bite and I breathed in the air as I wrote because at home it would be even harder to find the time or the place to do it. It felt good and I’m not sure how much of it was to do with ion exchange (I’ll let you research further if you’re interested) but I don’t need to know the scientific nitty gritty of it. For me it was a moment of disconnecting from all of the distractions of life in order to connect, by default, with the actual world around me and by doing so connect with myself and the present moment. I’m sure I’ll continue to relapse into the technology that is taking over the world but I found an amazing space that day and I found what it can do for my health and well being, for my mind and my soul and it’s a space I will strive to get back to as often as I can.

The following weekend we had a party for the boys’ birthdays (their birthdays are a week apart so we roll two parties into one and go all out) and it was a big, exciting, full on weekend. As much as I enjoy the preparation and watching them enjoy themselves with their friends I do tend to get wound up and crash in a heap once it’s all over. Thankfully this year we had a long weekend so Monday was our recovery day and by the afternoon we had done as much resting and ‘nothing’ as we could take. We needed to get out and do something and more than that we needed to find some peace, to recharge for the week ahead. So we went for a drive to a lovely secluded spot on the river. After a bit of rock climbing and exploring we settled in to have a swim and a splash in one of the rock pools beside some flowing rapids. I felt exhausted just watching the boys throw themselves around the pools still bursting with energy so I sat on a camping stool with my feet in the water and took some photo’s of them playing amidst the beautiful scenery. It wasn’t long though before I had to stop, put the camera down and just watch as my two boisterous, noisy boys sat side by side in a rock pool, both staring off into the distance in different directions as water trickled over the rocks and down towards the flowing river. It was all the proof I needed that nature and grounding could do wonders for the soul. Unlike me they had no expectation other than to play and explore that afternoon and even though they weren’t looking for it like I was they found peace.