Back

Silent time | Day 166 of my 2023 Journal

Cecilie Conrad·Jun 16, 2023· 2 minutes

🇩🇰 Also available in Danish 🇩🇰

True nomadic life is full of changes. New places. New houses. New people. New countries. New cultures. New plans. Especially new plans.

When my sister's family was leaving, we had a beautifully overstimulated chaotic morning with packing and cleaning and hugs and love.

At the same time, Liv, our oldest child, had called and needed to be picked up, so my husband left to get her at the ferry, and my other children and I kept cleaning and organizing until the house was sparkling.

Then we had silent time. Do you ever have that?

We have traveled full-time for very close to five years by now.

We have moved fast and wildly, been to many places, made loads of new friends, walked mountains and metropoles, joined festivals, and seen landmarks, pieces of art, and nature sights in the hundreds.

But silent time.

Silent time is rare.

So we sat on the sofas, picked up our books, had simple lunch in the kitchen, and sat on the couches again. Read our novels, fell asleep, and read some more. Four hours of nothing. Of silence. Of focus.

Liv arrived late afternoon. We cooked a nice dinner and sat for hours drawing all six of us.

It was silent, smiling, sharing time. Sometimes that is just the thing you need. To me, it works only because my wanderlust is being met by our lifestyle.

Before, I could hardly sit still; now, I genuinely appreciate silence and slow stuff.

Like drawing for hours.

It is some form of rebellion to stop and be silent and do simple slow stuff of no obvious value.

To the world, it seems we always have to be productive and efficient, so not doing so and being openly and on purpose silent and slow is my simple pushing back.

It might work. It works for us, and who knows?

It might be contagious.

Love and light

Cecilie-Underskrift-300x133

Cecilie Conrad

🇩🇰 Also available in Danish 🇩🇰

See more pictures on Facebook 

Thank you for reading
I would love to hear from you. Listen to your thoughts and reflections - or praise :) It is often emotional to share our life like this, and we get very happy when we get feedback from you. So feel free to share a comment below 😋 

I believe teenage girls need their mothers much more than our society appreciates and that the way we raise children in institutions, pushing them t…Read more
One advantage of living in a van is the number of things that need fixing/maintenance is much smaller compared to living in a house. Another advantag…Read more
This is a general warning for everyone who loves Shakespeare. For everyone who loves literature. Maybe for everyone in general. Do not visit Juliet's…Read more
It is sometimes emotionally complicated to stop. I remember someone said: “Vacation is doing something you are not usually doing.” Now we do not do v…Read more
Personal freedom is about waking up with loads of options, but more importantly, about having the courage to choose between options and knowing what …Read more
Before we went to Venice, I almost booked a place to stay in Murano, not Venice. It looked almost the same. From Venice, you take the public boat and…Read more
Why do we do what we do? It is obvious that traveling is an adventure and from the outside, it looks like a lot of vacation. The first part is right,…Read more
The feel of Venice is closely connected to walking. The experience of walking between houses, alongside canals, over bridges, over piazzas (and repea…Read more
It is funny how walking from Dorsodura, where we live, to the Saint Mark Basilica is a journey from a good tourist experience to something like hell.…Read more