We were walking the dog past the oval, just as the early sun began to lift the frost from the grass. The world was soft at the edges—muted, like it hadn’t fully woken yet.
For once, the morning was quiet in all the ways that matter. No shoes flung across the room. No cereal spilled. Just the gentle padding of paws beside me, the leash loose in my hand, and my son chattering to himself about something he’d seen in a dream.
It felt like a gift—to move slowly, with nowhere to be urgently. To let the rhythm of the day unfold without pushing it.
Then, from across the street, the old church bell rang.
Three slow, deep chimes that echoed through the air like a breath.
Our dog stopped walking, ears perked. My son did too, mid-sentence, his face turned toward the sound like he could see it.
“What’s that noise?” he asked, eyes wide.
“It’s the church bell,” I said. “It’s ringing the hour.”
He nodded, quiet now.
Then, almost to himself:
“Why does it sound so slow?”
I didn’t answer, because I wasn’t sure. But I felt it too—how the sound didn’t rush to fill the space. It hung in the air. Unfolded. Like it had all the time in the world.
There was something sacred in it. Not religious—something older than that.
A kind of timekeeping that didn’t care for clocks or calendars.
Just breath. Just presence.
We stood there, the three of us—child, dog, and me—held by sound and sunlight and silence.
And the bell stayed with me all morning.
Not in volume, but in weight.
It reminded me that not everything has to be fast.
That some things—like dogs, like children, like mornings—are best when unhurried.
Sometimes joy doesn’t sparkle.
It rings low and slow and steady, calling you back into your body.
And all you have to do is listen.
How often do we actually hear the stillness? Thank you for the reminder.
Ah, maybe it is the start of something....
Sue