Things That Are True - Enjoying the Quiet

It is Friday, and I am in New York.

The view from here

The bright lights of Times Square, a few blocks away through my window on the 43rd floor, wink in my peripheral vision, trying to lure me out of my self-made hotel room cocoon.

I'm tired. I'd be sleeping now but I'm zipped into a dress I can't get out of without help. The biggest party of the whole BlogHer conference is happening forty floors below me, and I am blissfully alone. The hum of the city, punctuated with an occasional and faraway burst of taxi horns and sirens, is familiar, comforting.

I'm finally learning to listen to my body, and tonight it said, "Stay in. Be alone. Enjoy the still. Revel in the quiet." It seems counter-intuitive to seek quiet in the city that never sleeps, but instead of forcing myself to be out, enjoying the bright lights big city, pushing through to the other side by sheer force of will, I'm heeding my body's message.

This conference is big, and joyful, and loud, and as Deb on the Rocks said at the Queerosphere party last night, "BlogHer's a marathon." That it is. An unapologetic, exuberant, boisterous gathering of the tribes. There are moments of true connection; interstitial moments, between sessions, in hallways, in the Serenity Suite, but it's also quick hugs, a smile and a wave in passing, and a whirlwind of learning and lineups and trying not to be left behind.

Tonight I am still, and I am content. For a person whose brain never stops whirring, who spends more nights sleepless than somnolent, who constantly has to clarify and classify all the things, to be still is a minor victory.

And tomorrow is another day.