Sit and Think

I remember as a child visiting places where older grownups might be: malls, museums, parks, or even other kids’ houses. 

My friend Sarah’s grandfather lived with her family. I don’t know how old he was when I was 13, but he seemed ancient. 

And all he would do whenever I saw him was sit and look out the window.I remember looking out the window, too, the first time I noticed him doing that. I thought “there must be something going on outside.” But there wasn’t. Hardly any cars even drove by.

I couldn’t understand how someone could just sit and look at…NOTHING! It made no sense to me.

I mean, I was always doing something. And if I was watching something, it was something worth watching – a television program, a movie, other people talking. It made no sense – ZERO SENSE – for someone to watch nothing.

It occurred to me that he must be so old he forgot how to do things.

One day I asked Sarah what he was doing. “Oh, he just sits and thinks” was all she said.

Well, now I was really flummoxed! Who does that? Who just “sits and thinks?!” It looked so BORING.

Maybe it’s something that comes with age, but for me, that age came with parenthood. The need to slow down to sit and feed a baby. To hold a sleeping child. To ponder over the wonder of a life I brought into the world, and what her future could be. And beyond that what my future might hold as a parent, as a mother in particular, as a woman, a person, and who and what I might become, too.

I was sitting. And thinking. And the world of potential and possibilities opened up to me. The simple act of sitting and thinking showed me how much more there is to this great big life than always keeping busy and doing things.

Before you knew it, I didn’t have to hold a child to just sit and think. I’d stare out a window just to see everything (as it was never really “nothing” was it?). Sitting in a chair by a window and thinking is to envision the potential to do and be anything.

Or to relax and remember and reminisce about everything.

Sit. Think. Be.

Take the time to do nothing, and in turn, discover the potential of everything.