Chapter Two | Learning the Language of Stillness

The mornings were slower now.

She woke to soft light moving across the floor in long stripes, the air just cool enough to make her pull the quilt tighter. One cat perched in the window. The other still curled beside her like a comma.

She didn’t check her phone.
She didn’t think about what time it was.
There was nowhere to be, except here.

She moved through the cottage barefoot, careful not to step on the loose board near the pantry. The kettle sang a quiet song. Cinnamon hung in the air before the coffee even brewed. She sat by the window with both hands wrapped around the mug and let herself look. Just look.

At the leaves shifting colors.
At the way the branches held the morning light.
At how nothing in the forest seemed to rush.

That’s when she realized: this quiet wasn’t empty—it was full. Full of things that didn’t demand anything from her.

She started a list in her notebook titled “Things I Didn’t Know I Missed.”
First on the list: sitting in silence without guilt.

She didn’t do much that day.
She swept the porch.
She walked a long trail she hadn’t explored yet.
She made soup and played a record and let the cats climb onto her lap when they wanted to.
She didn’t try to figure anything out.

Somewhere in the middle of it all, she felt it—that tiny pull in her chest, like something inside was finally unclenching.

Stillness, she realized, was something you had to get to know slowly.
Like a new neighbor.
Like a friend you once were, trying to remember how to be again.