~ THIS POST MARKS THE ONE YEAR ANNIVERSARY FOR BEGINNING THIS ONLINE JOURNAL ON JUNE 7, 2021 ~

Up until very recently, I have been accustomed to life in small towns: Nature greets you at your back door, silence is a reliable friend, and the only chaos to be found is the neighbor’s dog escaping their fence. Nature was always the main event, whether it was a hike through the woods, going out on the boat or hitting the beach. Mims is the small town of Florida I will always call home, and I love knowing that few people have ever even heard of it.

From the series *Transitional Chaos* (2022)

In a small town, it is second nature to discover inner stillness as there is not much to do on the external level. This lack of external stimuli inherent of rural environments holds a mystical capacity for unlocking the inner stillness within oneself. Having grown up with this kind of innate solitude as my baseline of being, it has naturally become a cornerstone to my sense of personal identity.

Now, having been in New York City for almost a year now, I have undergone innumerable internal crises related to my relationship with internal silence. I have lost and found that familiar inner stillness countless times in the city, however, when I have found it, those moments are far between and extremely brief. Where once the inner stillness was my center of gravity, it has now become a fleeting acquaintance. Living in the largest city in America has made me realize that I took the familiar ease of inner silence for granted. I assumed that my inner peace could pack up and travel with me anywhere I go. While this sentiment is in fact true, it holds a caveat: the louder the environment gets, the more conscious awareness I must give to the inner stillness in order for it to stay. If I want to keep inner peace as my baseline of being in this city, I will have to give more attention to it. Without attentive awareness, inner stillness becomes wilted like an unwatered plant.

My natural reaction has been to blame the city as the reason for my feeling more stressed, ungrounded and less centered. While the city environment has unquestionably played a vital role in this internal struggle, it is not the city at fault. Ultimately, it is my own actions and lack of conscious awareness that has brought me to where I am today. If anything, I must thank the city for exposing my faults and weaknesses. To get back to my center of internal peace, I must devote more effort and care to mindful engagement with the present moment. I will take the city as a test, a test to expand and deepen my mindfulness, because I know that if I can find my inner peace here, I will surely be able to nurture it anywhere.