Sophie Lynne Creations

I have always stood still. On escalators at malls or on those human conveyor belts at airports, I have remained stubbornly planted as people rush past my left shoulder. They always seem to be in a hurry until they get off and I realize they’re going the same place I am. What’s interesting about it is noticing the people that stand still.

There are two hours left on my American Airlines flight. I’m sandwiched between two deep sleepers and I’m scratching these very words on a notepad. I don’t want to watch a movie or try to sleep; I just want to stand still. So still I stand…

On my journey to this tight buckle and cold AC vent, I met more shoulder sliders. North Carolina’s very own. Standing there on the people mover, my creative writing senses perked up a little. I got thinking. My family of four all started on the conveyor belt together, yet shortly thereafter, my mom and brother slipped ahead. They ducked past three left shoulders, but my dad and I hung back. We were behind a family, a young one, with a little girl and two naive parents. The little girl had a Beauty and the Beast suitcase that was no bigger than her understanding of what was happening around her. As the world flowed past, she stood still on the moving black platform… surely, confidently. She stared out the gaping window to her right, and took it all in. The same gaping window that all the bustlers to her left ignored. The girl’s parents looked slightly embarrassed and chuckled, apologizing to the people behind the little girl. I wish she hadn’t apologized. In that girl, I saw myself.

People are often surrounded by things so pure and irreplaceable. Things utterly outstanding, that will shove them forward and onward, should they let them. Yet, fast is never fast enough for anyone. We are a world obsessed with the -er suffix. We want our lives to be better, stronger, smarter, and faster than the person to our right. So even when we’re given a full-service road to where we want to be, we can’t make ourselves stand still. We can’t make ourselves submit to the deflection of control and power. We find ourselves unable to just enjoy the gaping window to our right, and instead we focus on passing the shoulder ahead of us. The beauty of growing up is something indescribable, no doubt. But with each year that you tack on, there follows a certain sense of rush, and blurred vision. You grow taller, and you forget some of the most important, ground level thoughts. Those of us who resist and try to keep our feet immobile, letting the road take us, are inflicted with a sense of needing to apologize. For what? For holding others up behind us, or for seemingly “not caring,” “not trying”? Are we missing something? Quite the opposite. With our feet still, we are able to become sponges of those ground level thoughts and lessons. We are able to look out the window.

In a society of constant movement, with immense pull to be somewhere better, someone better, there is an extreme discomfort that comes with immobility. We feel lazy or inferior. Though it is when you stand still that you are able to turn towards the window and gaze all you want. Let yourself merely sit and breathe and watch as the planes go by. Count the cars on the highway. Hum as you work and take breaks. Often. Let yourself stand still behind the little girl with the Beauty and the Beast suitcase. You might just get yourself thinking.