Brain be not Still

I ask my husband what he thinks about when he's being quiet and he says "nothing" and means it. How does he do that?

My brain is constantly moving, picking up small stones and turning them over, discarding ideas and pulling down new ones. It never rests until full sleep. I get the most bizarre and intriguing thoughts on the way there.

For instance, I think about death. Not in a morbid, scary way, but in a nice, relief-of-letting-go way. I imagine dying is something like swinging out on a rope swing over a beautiful, bright creek. Even though I'd be afraid to let go, there would be that moment when I would let all my breath out and just release my hands and go sailing off in to space.

I think about the kind of motherhood I missed and the nature of the mother I have become. That I did not have a body grow inside me does makes me wistful sometimes. But that I have the joy of a child who squeezes my hand for no reason, who confesses her secrets, who loves me and trusts me is a joy I never really expected. And then there are other times when I'm shaking with fury that I can't release and I feel I've failed to live up to my own standards. I wonder at my own arrogance at thinking I can be a parent when so many others fail at it every day.

I think about cool green hiking trails, about taking off with a pack and a stick and seeing how far I can go. I look at the flowers, the mushrooms, the trees and the birds flicking in and out of the trees above my head and I wonder about the names of things -- the difference between a Black-eyed and a Brown-eyed Susan and the different kinds of sunflowers or what kinds of things would be safe to eat if I were alone in the wilderness. I get stuck on a thing ... "tickseed coreopsis" and I can't let it go until I've found one.

I think about God and I wonder what He thinks of me, if I am a disappointment or a pleasure to Him. I wonder how He hears all the prayers and words and cries of the masses of people He made and loves so much. I wonder if God weeps for the messes we've made or if He laughs at our joy and wonder. And then I thank him, absent-mindedly, as if I were a small child thanking her mother for a cookie and not a grown woman thanking her God for the whole world and all her blessings.

I think in seasons, in colors, in names and temperatures and smells. I'm amazed at the sudden power of the smell of asphalt to transport me to being 12 and running to the rollercoasters at Worlds of Fun. Or how the smell of Polo takes me back to the moment when I smelled it on somone I loved and later, on the letters he sent me begging me to come back to him. The heat of summer takes me to dust and to the gravel roads I walked as a bored and lonely little girl, headed to my friend's house for blue popsicles and company. How leaves crunching can be the Renaissance Festival or the simple act of raking leaves in my front yard. And the taste of cranberry juice and little chocolate donuts takes me back to an idealistic morning 15 years ago when I munched a quick breakfast before going to the church to become a young bride and a new wife.

My mind can not stay quiet and will not stay here. I do worry about that sometimes. Some people say it's ADD -- my teachers begged my parents to have me evaluated and my mother refused. I even took the online test.

I could have it checked out now but why nuetralize what I see as, ultimately, one of my gifts? I have a lifetime of mental scrapbooks I can flip through all the time and an insatiable hunger for knowledge, words and thoughts. I have learned to still my body but my brain will not be stopped.