By Klaudia Wiacek

Stillness. The feeling I get when my mind comes to a complete stop. My thoughts and feelings are blocked, and I am left with the rest of my mind. As I walk down the vibrant nature-filled streets of New York, my mind begins to come to a complete stop of stillness. The leaves on the trees are still and ever so slightly ruffling as a result of the wind’s subtle breath. The green vibrance radiates a calming aura and I immediately begin to take in its presence. The pink cherry blossoms captivate my eyes as I observe its petals gently falling onto the ground. As I walk further, my breathing begins to change shape. I feel each small pause of “Inhaling …. Exhaling….”. I follow this breath pattern and continue to walk along the narrow and empty block. The further my feet take me, the deeper my breathing gets. I’m soaking it all in. The time seems to simply glide past me, and I completely lose track of it. Time… what a complicated thing. It has the ability to take up so much space without actually physically being there. As human beings, it’s so easy to get lost within time for all the wrong reasons. We get tangled up in a knot of our thoughts, worries, fears and so on. We tend to have trouble letting go and escaping that tightly knit knot. Time is constantly moving along and forward. I find time to be charming yet lethal. I and many humans often long for more time as if we were all walking on the edge of a weak thread. The time captures my mind and my breathing changes shape yet again. I notice that my walk is coming to an end as I have run out of time. I walk a couple of more steps and exit the block, proceeding with my regular scheduled program of life. The clock keeps ticking….