We had an exceptionally quiet day today.

This week is just full enough that when my husband needed the car this afternoon, I declared it was a stay-at-home day, all day, for the rest of us.  It’s been so peaceful.

The weather has played a part….fall is remembering that it’s supposed to show up, and we’ve had the windows open and a cool breeze blowing in.  My youngest woke with a sweet spirit and discovered the coloring books a friend had passed on to me the night before, so we started our morning coloring at the sunny kitchen table.  Breakfast involved simply pushing our things to the side while she ate her toast.  It was so quiet she realized she could hear the squirrels’ feet as they scampered up and down the trees outside the window, much the same way she noticed the steam rising from her spoonful of oatmeal when she was four.

We counted the rainbows in the laundry room, cast by the crystal hanging in the window,  throwing colors in every direction.  We “caught” the rainbows in our hands. She decided it was time for some fall clothes, so we worked in her room a bit; putting away her summery sundresses, getting out her black buckle-up shoes.

She found a clouded sulphur butterfly in the yard, which led her to bring her Legos out onto the deck to play before lunch.

Now she’s playing peacefully in her room while she listens to an audiobook, and I am here.

I’m writing all this down because I want to remember it.  I want to remember that we are choosing differently, that we are living differently, and that we’re doing it on purpose.

While I colored with my little one early this morning, I got a phone call from a friend, apologizing for having to miss out on a gathering we’d been planning.  She’d forgotten a thing, she was double-booked, she was so sorry, she couldn’t make it.

And that’s fine.  Mistakes happen, I understand.

What’s funny to me is that this is the same person who gives me such grief when I say “no” to things.  I have, occasionally, mentioned Courtney Carver’s idea that I don’t say no because I’m too busy….I say no because I don’t want to be busy.  Of course!  She understands.  Completely.

Until the next time I choose not to do something.

That is her choice.  For my part, I will continue to pay attention to my family’s need for rest, especially during busy seasons.  I will keep taking lessons from my youngest, my Noticer.  I will keep choosing slow and steady over fast and furious; choosing different.

Choosing quiet.