Shaken & Stirred

When stillness and motion collide...

Two brothers, one martini. One lanky and warm, the other sturdy and jovial. One shakes, the other stirs. Both use the same ingredients to create perfection in totally disparate ways. 

At first I did not think much of their juxtaposed comradery, joining one brother or the other at their respective establishments, notebook, curiosity, pen, and reflections from the day on the mountain in hand.  Night after night, one shook, the other stirred, both talked, both listened, leaving me each time inextricably inspired.  It was in fact on one such evening that the martini truly hit me. 

The mountains are always still; there, you are the motion. The ocean is always churning; there, you are the stillness. Two topographies, one wave.  Two backdrops, one you.

I had originally arrived to these very mountains after a tough year ‘between the waves’ of a career transition, followed by thirteen arduous months of shock, caretaking, and grieving.  A collective symbolic standstill to a life I had managed to, perhaps egotistically, always drive forward as my own. 

Yet I was here, and it was here. Here. In stillness and in motion. Grief and ecstasy.  Confusion and clarity.  Despondence and possibility.  It was here that waves of powder replaced crashing ocean swells, where rip currents converted into electrifying slalom turns.  

Here. Where lackluster visions metamorphosed into devastatingly desirable projects, where a perceived lack of inspiration transformed into a series of martini glasses overfloweth, where a transitional period actually transitioned into clear next steps.  Where fear transformed into ecstasy.  Where the following year I returned, unknowingly carrying a young baby.  And this year again, where they bounce alongside me staring at the snow covered peaks as I type. 

Past, present, and future merged into one wave, the one wave, shaken and stirred, that has taken on the kinetic energy I thought I had forever lost.  

Kinetic Energy, or  ¹/₂mv² .  An energy possessed by motion and mass, in fact, by the mere virtue of being in motion. Stemming from root kiei, or to set in motion, kinetic energy is something only you, the object, the mass, can carry, even if it feels like you have no energy at all.

I wonder now if I found the kinetic energy or if it found me.  Was it the stillness, dare say patience, I attempted to embody between the waves, or the movement that I commandeered through the quietude?  Is the key, perhaps, to transitionary periods as simple as to keep moving in stillness, and in movement, keep still?  

There are times in life when staticness and motion collide.  These moments create inflection points in the continuum, marking subtle angles in the smooth turns.  Like the two brothers, shaken and stirred, mountain and sea, momentum and propulsion - all one one perfect pour.