Rhythms have been on my mind a lot over the last year, especially moving from my intention of rest to my intention of open. I’ve thought a lot about my own rhythms – what mine are and why I have them – as well as how those compare to the things that are naturally occurring around me. It seems that this is made evident to me the most in the fall, as the leaves begin to change colors and lose their leaves. It sometimes seems hard to be aware of the changing of leaves budding in the spring, to being full and lush in the summer, to changing colors and falling in autumn, to the bare trees of the winter – and again and again each year without fail.

Rhythms are a regular reminder of times to speed up and slow down, work and rest, and inhale and exhale. I love rhythms over routines because they’re softer. They’re less like rules and more like encouragements. Rhythms are a way of saying that something is important without saying it’s a non-negotiable. It’s a way to show up for the projects, emergencies, and most urgent while still getting the day to day tasks done. Part of my daily rhythm right now is to make sure that I track my food and exercise daily but if something or someone needs me, that’s where I’m going to show up first. I will give up my exercise streak on my Apple Watch so that I could hold my best friend’s new baby and enjoy some extra sleep on a weekend away. Rhythms mean that I hit the exercise and calorie goal most days but that I’ll always get to prioritize my people over anything else.

I was excited to see that the Magnolia Journal’s fall theme was rhythms. After reading so many good things, I decided I wanted to memorialize their piece called An Essay on Rhythms:

Nature dances to a rhythm: In the way the sun rises and sets. In the birds’ song at sunrise and in the crickets’ chirp at sunset. In the way each season moves us along throughout the year…the annual cadence of a rainy April, giving way to a hot July, giving way to a crisp October, giving way to a cold January, and the thousands of little orchestras that follow the tempo of that grand symphony. The flowers move to the rhythm of the seasons: sprouting and budding and blooming and dying.

Humanity dances to a rhythm: in the holidays we celebrate the order in which they come. Costumes and candy give way to turkey and football, which give way to carols and gifts wrapped under the tree. We find rhythm in our daily commute, in the voice of the DJ’s morning report, in the stoplights and exits, in the pleasantries exchanged with the coffee shop barista. Rhythm comes with bodies that must be fed three times a day (give or take), with daily prayer and weekly meetings and monthly girls’ nights and yearly Super Bowl games. We create bedtime rhythms: We bathe our kids, brush their teeth, read them a story, tuck them in, and sing a song.

There is peace in rhythm. There is security and predictability. Not a stagnant sort of predictability, just enough to make us feel like everything is going to be okay, just enough to give us something to look forward to. Because while there’s a lot of rhythm, there’s also a lot of chaos. There are unexpected bills to pay, relationships to maintain, natural disasters, an ongoing to do list that will never be completely finished, flat tires, bad moods, burnt dinners.

But then there’s the sun, rising again. And then there’s our lungs, exhaling again. And then there’s Thanksgiving, right around the corner. We’ll take our afternoon coffee break. We’ll say a prayer. We’ll look up and see ducks flying south for the winter. We’ll cross the next thing off our to do list. We’ll get a new winter coat. We’ll plan a summer trip. We’ll go for an evening walk.

And we’ll tap our feet. We’ll sway back and forth. We’ll clap our hands. We’ll lean into the rhythms of our lives because they give us a sense of place in our story, clueing us in to where we’ve been and where we might expect to go next, offering us familiarity in the midst of a chaotic world – like our lungs filling with air and then emptying themselves and filling up again, like the ocean tides and the morning cups of tea and the annual harvest festivals: We embrace the rhythm of the season, and we find peace in the way it moves us.

An Eassy on Rhythm // The Magnolia Journal, Fall 2020