the quiet settles
in a way rain never does
slow but permanent
I’ve spent most of my life without knowing what peace really was. Not the absence of noise — that’s too easy — but the kind where your mind finally stops pacing the corridors of itself.
For years, I thought the restlessness was just part of who I was. A faint hum under the surface that never left. Some days it was a quiet static. Other days it was like being trapped in a crowded train car with too many people talking at once. I never thought to question it. You learn to move through the world in the way you’ve always moved.
It wasn’t until I started writing things down that I noticed certain places, certain moments, made that hum fade. I’d return to them without understanding why. Now, looking back, I see the pattern.
The first time was in a small apartment in Basel, early spring. I’d cleared out most of the furniture after a move, and for weeks the only things in the room were a table, a chair, and a plant that looked half asleep. There was nothing to straighten, nothing to fix. I remember sitting there with a cup of coffee, noticing how my thoughts seemed to find their own order. The space wasn’t beautiful. It was just… absent of friction.
I’ve found the same feeling on a long walk, when my legs find a rhythm that doesn’t need my attention anymore. Or cycling along the Rhine when the air is neither cold nor warm, just the temperature of moving water. In those moments, the mind stops scanning for what’s next and settles into what’s here.
I’ve noticed it in small anchors, too. The way kneading clay pulls my focus through my hands. The soft thud of bread dough folding over itself. Even writing by hand in a notebook — the scratch of the pen is enough to keep the rest of me tethered.
There was a winter in Shinjuku when I stayed in a hotel near a back street of izakayas. At night, the air smelled of grilled fish and wood smoke. My room was small enough that I could reach the desk from the bed without standing up. I had a single lamp with a warm bulb, a stack of books, and a window that caught the neon from across the street. Outside was chaos, but inside was a contained world. I didn’t realize it at the time, but that was peace too — not because it was silent, but because nothing inside the room was pulling at me.
It’s taken me most of my life to see that peace isn’t something you build in a single sweep. It’s a thousand small adjustments. Less noise. Fewer open tabs, in the mind and on the screen. Enough light to see without squinting. Objects where they belong. The right amount of movement, the kind that doesn’t demand attention.
And maybe most important — letting go of the running commentary that plays in the background. I’ve been my own harshest critic for as long as I can remember. That voice never built anything for me. The times I’ve managed to replace it with something gentler, or with silence, are the times I’ve felt most whole.
Some of this I learned by accident. Some I wrote down before I understood its value. And now, when I feel the static rising again, I know where to look: toward spaces that give more than they take, rhythms that carry me without effort, and people who see my edges and don’t try to sand them down.
Maybe peace was never meant to be chased. Maybe it was always meant to be noticed.
life 