inspirational, leisure

Rent Free Poem Week 2: Day 4

Posted by Sandhya on

Hey rockstars, 

As those of you who read yesterday’s post know, it’s time for another “Rent Free Poem” Week!

Some of you might remember the first edition back in February 2024 (posts linked at the bottom). That was right before Tay’s TTPD dropped. And funny enough her newest album, Life of a Showgirl, comes out this Friday. I guess I’m more aligned with Taylor than I thought… though let’s be real, her productivity is goals.

What is Rent Free Poem Week?

So what is rent free poem week? Every day for a week, I pick a poem that’s been living rent-free in my head since I read it, and I write about it. For this, I have to channel all my 10th-grade English reading comprehension skills, but sadly there are no SparkNotes for these poems. So here is me, taking my shallow take on deep poems and hoping I can half-as-eloquently describe how these beautiful pieces of writing made me feel. 

Here’s Week 2; Day 4:

Awe and Time

Neuroscience shows awe slows down your perception of time. When you witness something vast — stars, mountains, or oceans — your brain expands the moment, stretching seconds into memory. That’s why awe makes life feel longer, richer, and more meaningful. It literally bends how you experience existence.

Years and years ago we went on a trip to the West Coast to see Monument Valley, the Grand Canyon, and a few other places that are escaping my brain right now. I remember I was a bit annoyed because my parents had to pick me up early from a summer camp that I loved, to go on this random national park roadtrip on the West Coast. Like.. ugh. I want to hang out with my friends. It was also right after Deathly Hallows (the book) came out. So emotions were riding high.

On the way back from Monument Valley, we were driving to Sedona and were in insane bumper to bumper traffic. We were stopped for HOURS. But I distinctly remember looking out the window and looking at the sky and seeing more stars than I’d ever seen in my entire life. The entire nightsky was filled with stars that I couldn’t even believe this is what the sky looked like. Naturally, growing up in the suburbs, there are too many lights in the city, from street lamps, from houses, from society, to look up and see a clear sky like this. But this moment? It was unreal.

A few weeks ago, my family and my Nani went to a Yurt in Shenandoah and had our own “glamping” type experience. Mom and I had been wanting to go glamping for years and considered booking a glamping experience last year. But of course we weren’t inspired enough to go. This year was much overdue. While the entire weekend was fun, filled with rewatching Harry Potter, filled with good vibes, nature, archery, cornhole, no signal on my work phone, and family time… the highlight was Friday night. Reminiscing on our Arizona trip, we knew that this glamping experience would be deserted enough that we would once again be able to see the stars.

I’m big into celestial events — traveling to see solar eclipse, seeing the northern lights in Victoria last summer, and staring up at the sky and feeling in awe.

So naturally, we turned off the string lights on our Yurt, turned off all the lights inside, made sure there was nothing flashy or distracting near by, and looked up. (See blog image!! That’s one of the pictures that I took). There were maybe 2 million stars in the sky. I also saw maybe 7-8 shooting stars during the course of the night. Moments that we would never get where I live in the Suburbs.

Neuroscience and personal experience can confirm that awe has the power to change how we perceive time, and in doing so, how we experience life itself. Awe to me, is a lot like radical amazement. The sheer feeling of looking at the world around you without taking any of it for granted — the technology, the sky, the people, the trees, the flowers, new life, new beginnings, all of it. When we’re in awe, time stops. We lose our obsessive sense of self and our finnicky clock-watching. Instead our mind quiets, the wonder expands, and we’re pulled into the present, where the “now” becomes wider, deeper, and fuller.

So often we’re consumed with the hurriedness of daily life — the encouragement to optimize every second, to turn relaxing hobbies into productive outings (e.g., hot girl walks), to multitask endlessly. And time? It keeps going. I can’t speak for everyone else but I’m consumed with my thoughts — “I have to do xyz” “I need to talk to X about Y” “Let me check when is the best time to go home so I have time to run these errands” “I have so many things to do and no time to do it.” Days blur, weeks vanish, and months rush by.

But this level of awe slows us down. When I was underneath the stars, I didn’t think about my to-do list, I didn’t think about my unanswered texts or emails, I just soaked in the fact that I’m but a speck of dust in space, convincing myself that everything I do is a make-or-break experience, when in reality, things happen to us, and we adapt.

Change happens, and we adjust. Hardship happens and we become resilient. We lean on those we love, we make mistakes, we hope for the best. I am small, but I’m not insignificant; on the contrary, looking at the stars I have a sense of being that is larger than myself.

One thing I’ve realized is that the combination of science (neuroscience, physics) and daily life (awe, coffee dates), is my favorite form of poetry. We all remember Coffee Date Physics.

But maybe somewhere between the electromagnetic physics, the neurological rewiring, and the chemistry we have with our surroundings, we exist to live in awe. We exist to be amazed. We exist to have humility, connectedness, and happiness.

And it turns these ordinary moments into extraordinary ones — and like Brene Brown said: Joy comes to us in moments—ordinary moments. We risk missing out on joy when we get too busy chasing down the extraordinary.

Past Rent-Free Poems: 

Until next time!

xo

Sandhya

If you would like to celebrate my 30th year around the sun with me, then please click the follow or subscribe button! Feel free to connect with me through this platform, twitter, my coffee and checkins Instagram, my podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, or Amazon Music, or email me at coffeeandcheckins@gmail.com! If you have any suggestions for topics or anything you’d like me to write/speak about, please let me know🙂❤

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