Setting Intentions: Rhythm
06.01.24 | 55111
For Reflection:
Have you considered the difference between rhythms and routines before? Does this concept resonate with you?
What comes to mind when you hear the word ‘rhythm’?
What life experiences, activities, or memories do you associate with rhythm?
Rhythm in music involves down beats and off beats. It involves strong beats and weak beats. How do these ideas about rhythm translate into your life rhythm?
What are your strong beats?
What are your weak beats?
Are you content with your life’s rhythm? Why or why not?
June. It is this point in the year at which I suddenly question how time is moving so fast. For me personally, 2024 has already brought much-anticipated and needed changes. A small (big) life update is that I have resigned from my job in South Carolina, and I am returning to work full-time for the housing nonprofit I previously left in Minnesota. In the past few months, I have realized that I crave flexibility and autonomy – neither of which I found in my previous position, and both of which are available to me as a remote worker for an organization whose mission I care about deeply.
It is in this context of change that I am approaching the topic of rhythm. For me, summer 2024 will bring even more change over the next several weeks. I will be traveling quite a bit and spending much of the summer away from South Carolina, moving around almost constantly. As a result, I am feeling the need for a bit of a rhythm. When I’m at home in SC, I have a more easily-identifiable routine – a set of daily and weekly occurrences that define my days. But in the constant change that is to come, I anticipate that routine will be difficult, if not nearly impossible, to follow. And so, I’m asking myself: what are the practices and values that define how I want my life to be, and how can I implement them in the season that is to come?
For me, the idea of following a type of rhythm has been powerful, even in the last couple of days. Perhaps this is because the word rhythm, for me, immediately brings to mind my experience with music. If you don’t already know this about me, I love music. I love the process of making music, and I love the experience of being part of a larger group of people making music together. And I also find that music inspires me, no matter the genre or content. And at the most granular level, I find that the basic components of music-making inspire me as well – especially rhythm.
Rhythm, in its most basic definition, reflects the creation of strong beats and weak beats – and the interplay between the two. One cannot exist without the other – or at least, they’re pretty boring without the other.
In the past couple days, I’ve been considering how the same is true for rhythms in our daily, weekly, monthly, yearly lives. There are times where we have energy, strength, and control. In those moments, we feel powerful. But there are also times where we are softer. In music, those are called ‘offbeats’ – and, for me, that term quite literally translates onto my experience of my life’s rhythm. Some days, weeks, and months, I feel off.
I’m still learning to believe that the interplay between these strong and weak, down and off beats is okay. I’m still learning to accept that there are going to be days where I do not have the same energy as other days. I’m still learning to see the beauty in that – the release in that. In the end, making beautiful music is not about creating the same sound, at the same volume, at the same interval, forever. Making beautiful music is about being present to the variety of sounds one can make, often in the company of others whose energy ebbs and flows in different patterns than one’s own.
In the coming weeks, I will share about the people, places, and practices which form the rhythm of my own life. I hope that I’ll find some continued inspiration in the process of considering how to balance the strong and weak beats of my life. And I hope you’ll consider some of these questions, too. How does the rhythm of your life look? How does it feel? What are the essential pieces of your life’s rhythm – both in the strong moments and in the weak ones?
And, I hope we will all be reminded this month that our own rhythms are component pieces of a larger symphony – our rhythms ebb and flow in different ways than others’. And the conversation that emerges allows each of us to lean on each other and create moments of care for ourselves.
The questions offered at the top of each Zip Code Project post can be used as daily journal prompts. This month, there will be 30 in total. If you’d like access to all 30 June questions ahead of time, send me a message at hello@thezipcodeproject.substack.com or on Instagram @autumndelongrodgers. I would love to send them over so you never miss one.
Until next time, friends.