The Lure of The Quiet

I’m a city girl.

I tell anyone who asks.

I’ve lived in cities my whole life except a stint in my tweens in small town Kansas and my college years in a small Arkansas college town.

I watched a hummingbird flit under our cottage porch on our anniversary trip this weekend, his wings in stark contrast to his larger counterpart lazily gliding above, and I thought, well, I guess God built some of us to move faster than others.

I walk fast.  I talk fast. I type fast. I think fast (too fast sometimes).  And historically, vacation for me was sightseeing in Rome or covering as many square miles in Alaska as possible in a week.  Even when I took time off, I liked to be on the move.

Among the many changes in my life over the past couple of years, I think this change of needing constant motion is one of the most surprising.  Last summer, we took a family vacation to Yosemite National Park.  We stayed in a house (not an activity-driven resort) outside of civilization.  Bray and I sipped coffee on the deck while the kids played with the mountain cat. We hiked the park during the day and cooked out burgers and played Battleship at night.  We swore we’d never take another Disney vacation while the kids were young, so sweet was this time without pressure or schedule or frenzied rushing.

Then this anniversary weekend, our first couple’s weekend away in nearly two years, we opted for a small inn in the middle of the Texas Hill Country instead of a resort in northern San Antonio we’d first considered.  Little did we know what a gift it would be.

We lazily made our way through the towns on Friday.  We stumbled upon a gem of a local restaurant in Schulenburg and drew out our lunch chatting with the owner and wandering through the gift shop in the silo out back.  Instead of a five star dinner at a hip restaurant in the city for our big 10 year anniversary, I packed a picnic.  We had a bag with good champagne, a red checked tablecloth, the champagne flutes we used to toast at our wedding, and cheeses, crackers, and summer sausage.   I had a little cake made that looked (but sadly did not TASTE) like our wedding cake, and we exchanged bites and cards after the sun went down.

We lounged around.  In the mornings, sipping coffee on the front porch.  In the evenings, spotting deer as we sat with a glass of wine in the quiet.  We spent a couple of hours at a big Hill Country market so Bray could do his “pickin’,” but we left by noon.  We people watched (and commented) as we snacked under ancient trees on an oversized deck overlooking a creek.  Instead of hurrying out, I said, let’s stay a little longer, so we did.

We ate on property Saturday night.  We watched stars from the hot tub after dark.  We slept in.  I actually commented how much lower my shoulders sit after 24 hours of deep rest. Laughing and sleeping.  Quiet.

As the years pass, I find myself drawn to the lure of the quiet more. Less bustle. Less, gasp, city frenzy. More stars and trees. More time. More fresh air and wide open spaces.  Space to talk or sit in silence. A place to rest.

Who’d have thought?  A little over a decade ago, I thought about breaking off an engagement because my man wanted to retire to the ranch and lead a quiet life.  God knew what He was doing teaching me about quiet through this man and his way of life.  And while I’m sure I’ll never give up a spot in the city, I’m sure looking forward to time away from it too.