I’ve noticed a change in myself the last few weeks. There is a certain type of peace that has settled deep inside my bones. I haven’t exactly been able to place this new feeling. It’s this warmth, almost a burning, but not like the burning anxiety that is normally sitting in my chest. This is lighter, softer, and fluttering. It’s exciting and it makes me look forward to day-to-day life. However, if I’m being honest, it makes me a little nervous to feel this way.

My Mind, The Machine

I’m used to feeling this weight. It typically sits in my shoulders, pushing down into my chest. It’s heavy, but over time I’ve acclimated to it. Now, I think it functions almost like a weighted blanket of sorts. It grounds me, constantly reminding me that I’m present. It’s always keeping score of what I have and haven’t yet done. I think that familiar weight is just my mind- the thinking that never stops. It sometimes feels more like a computer than part of the human body. Running tasks, calculating odds, and adjusting in the background. It is just functioning constantly, like the machine it believes it is. But as of late, this familiar weight has lightened somehow.

The gears inside my mind have slowed down, it feels like someone is closing windows and shutting down the software. Now, I don’t have the hands of a clock ticking away each moment of each and every day. In its absence, I’ve noticed this soft, warm hum within my chest. It settled between my ribs and wrapped itself around my heart. With every beat of my heart, the warm hum spreads through my body. It loosens my shoulders, lightens my footsteps, and floods into my tingling fingertips.

Softly, Silently, Settling

I think this feeling is what has made me so driven to write lately. I want so badly to capture this feeling and moment of my life on paper. Because although I’ve watched myself change so drastically over the years, this bone-deep peace feels pivotal. This feels like the culmination of years of work, change, and growth. But it’s not dramatic or loud. It almost feels like a stone, that after so long of sinking down into the water, has finally landed on the silty bottom. It landed without a sound or any sudden movement. It has been a settling so peaceful, it was reminiscent of sleep. I might’ve missed it if I wasn’t paying attention.

Great Fondness and the Prairie

I don’t think this feeling can be described in a single word. Maybe it’s more of a phenomenon, but whatever it is I know it’s rooted in love. This peace, it’s made me more observant, quiet, grateful, and present. It reminds me of the awe I feel when I gaze upon the vast land of the prairie. How open and free the land is! You can see clearly for miles in every direction. The prairie is a sea of earth and grass, as far as your eyes can see. The fondness I feel for the prairie is not easy to come by. It’s something I spent the majority of my life resenting. I found the flat, unchanging slope of earth to be boring or repetitive. But as I’ve gotten older, and as I’ve grown into this peaceful hum within my soul- I’ve realized the flat, expansive stretch of land is the exact thing that draws me in.

See, It’s easy to love the mountains. They’re loud and demanding of attention. They announce their beauty and resilience for all to see. These giants stretch far and wide into the sky, accepting reverence and worship in stride. It is not easy for every heart to love the prairie.

The prairie is softer than the mountains. It is quiet, vast, open- the prairie invites reflection over reverence. This sea of earth requires vulnerability. There are no ridges to hide behind. You come as you are, and exist plainly and in the open. I think that is the closest I can get to capturing this feeling on paper.

What Am I Made Of?

Maybe if you peeled back flesh and muscle, you would see the soft grass of the prairie wrapped around my heart, with wildflowers poking out between my ribs. I think this peace I feel can only be achieved by welcoming the openness, reflection, and vulnerability I see within that familiar stretch of land. I’ve embodied the prairie, and am now feeling the gentle hum of her peace in my bones.

Perhaps the gentle breeze that moves between blades of grass, is the very same thing that lightened my body and mind, and moved my hand to put pen to paper. I believe this peace has always been inside my soul, it is just a part of me that took longer to discover.

I’ve always said that if you could see my soul, it would be green. I wasn’t entirely sure why, but now I know it is because my soul is love, intertwined with soil, stars, and the gentle grass of the prairie. Accepting this soft, reliant part of myself is perhaps one of the most important parts of my life thus far. It’s given me this sense of peace and hope that, for the first time in my life, feels unconditional. A peace that remains throughout the busy, chaotic days.

This peace is not something that I have to grasp with white-knuckles, for it is not something meant to be controlled, rather welcomed with a gentle embrace. I am still learning how to settle into this new state of being, but I feel confident in knowing that I carry a calming piece of the prairie, within the very fabric of my being.