There is a small porch behind her house, tucked between two oak trees that lean toward each other like old friends.
It is not fancy. The paint is chipped. The screen door sighs when she opens it.
Still, it is the one place she can breathe.
Evening sits heavy on the air. The last light of the day clings to the rail, and the sound of insects rises like a quiet chorus.
She steps outside with a mug she will not finish and sits in the old wooden chair that rocks just enough to remind her she is still here.
She tells herself she came out for quiet. What she really came for was relief. It has been another long day of holding too much, speaking carefully, smiling when she did not feel it. The house behind her hums with everything unfinished. The porch, at least, asks nothing of her. She sets the mug on the railing and listens to the wind move through the leaves. For a few breaths, it feels almost like peace.
But peace does not stay. It never does when her mind starts moving. A word someone said earlier still presses at her chest. A tone that stung more than it should have. She replays it, edits her own response, searches for the right sentence she could have used to stay calm, kind, composed. The perfectionist in her wants to win the conversation she already left. The rest of her just wants to stop feeling like she failed at being centered.
She leans back and stares at the sky. The blue has turned to gray, and one star flickers through the branches. There was a time she thought being intuitive meant being calm. Always steady. Always above it. But her calm has cracks. She snaps. She hides. She says the wrong thing. She goes quiet when she should speak. And then the judgment comes, not from others but from inside. It sounds like her own voice asking, “How can you still not have this figured out?”
The chair creaks as she rocks forward, elbows on knees. A moth circles the porch light. The rhythm of its wings sounds like a soft pulse in the silence. She watches it bump against the glass again and again, drawn to the glow that keeps burning it. Somehow, she understands that feeling. That pull toward what hurts. That hope that this time, maybe, she will find peace by chasing it harder.
Her hand tightens around the mug. The air smells like rain that will not come. Somewhere inside, she hears the quiet voice she has been avoiding. Not the loud one that tells her she should do better, but the gentler one that waits underneath. It does not sound like instruction. It sounds like permission.
“You are still listening,” it says.
“Even here.”
Her throat softens. She takes a long, uneven breath. For a moment, she lets herself feel everything at once—the regret, the exhaustion, the tenderness that lives beneath it. She has been waiting for calm before listening, when all along, listening was what made her calm. She presses a palm to her chest and feels her own heartbeat. It is uneven, real, alive. It tells her she is still connected, even when she feels lost.
She looks out into the trees and thinks of all the times she thought she had fallen out of grace. The arguments. The silences. The nights she went to bed replaying what she could have said differently. Every one of them was followed by this same porch, this same breath, this same return. It hits her then: she has never really left. She only forgets, and remembering is its own kind of peace.
A neighbor’s dog barks in the distance. Somewhere, a car door closes. The world keeps moving, indifferent to her revelations, yet somehow part of them. She thinks of a friend who told her she seemed calm all the time. She wanted to laugh. If only they could see her on this porch, still learning how to forgive her own noise.
She picks up the mug again and takes a sip. The tea has gone cold. It does not matter. The taste grounds her. The rocking chair creaks again, slower this time. Her shoulders drop. She lets the air move through her instead of trying to control it. That is the difference now. Not perfect peace, but honest presence.
She used to believe she would outgrow the messy parts of herself. Now she understands they are her teachers. They show her where she is holding on too tightly, where she is still trying to earn love she already has. The more she resists them, the louder they become. The more she listens, the quieter they turn.
She whispers into the evening, almost like a prayer she is not sure who will hear.
“I am listening.”
The wind moves through the trees as if it heard her. A single leaf falls and lands beside her foot. She does not move to pick it up. She just watches it rest there, perfect in its stillness, without effort, without control. For the first time all day, her breath matches the rhythm of the night around her.
The porch light hums. The stars settle into their places. She is not peaceful in the way she imagined. But she is here, awake, aware, and quietly aligned with something larger than calm.
The Truth Beneath
Peace is not the absence of noise. It is the willingness to listen through it. It is the steady pulse that waits beneath every mistake, every reaction, every unfinished sentence. It does not scold or demand perfection. It just asks for honesty.
The night breathes with her now. She closes her eyes, not to escape, but to feel more deeply. And in that breath, something ancient and quiet moves inside her.
You will find it waiting, just behind your next thought.
Derek Wolf
Writer · Storyteller · Intuitive Teacher.
Stories like this one are written in quiet hours of the night.
If you would like to help keep them coming, you can do so here.
☕ Buy Me a Coffee
She tells herself she came out for quiet. What she really came for was relief. It has been another long day of holding too much, speaking carefully, smiling when she did not feel it. The house behind her hums with everything unfinished. The porch, at least, asks nothing of her. She sets the mug on the railing and listens to the wind move through the leaves. For a few breaths, it feels almost like peace.
But peace does not stay. It never does when her mind starts moving. A word someone said earlier still presses at her chest. A tone that stung more than it should have. She replays it, edits her own response, searches for the right sentence she could have used to stay calm, kind, composed. The perfectionist in her wants to win the conversation she already left. The rest of her just wants to stop feeling like she failed at being centered.
She leans back and stares at the sky. The blue has turned to gray, and one star flickers through the branches. There was a time she thought being intuitive meant being calm. Always steady. Always above it. But her calm has cracks. She snaps. She hides. She says the wrong thing. She goes quiet when she should speak. And then the judgment comes, not from others but from inside. It sounds like her own voice asking, “How can you still not have this figured out?”
The chair creaks as she rocks forward, elbows on knees. A moth circles the porch light. The rhythm of its wings sounds like a soft pulse in the silence. She watches it bump against the glass again and again, drawn to the glow that keeps burning it. Somehow, she understands that feeling. That pull toward what hurts. That hope that this time, maybe, she will find peace by chasing it harder.
Her hand tightens around the mug. The air smells like rain that will not come. Somewhere inside, she hears the quiet voice she has been avoiding. Not the loud one that tells her she should do better, but the gentler one that waits underneath. It does not sound like instruction. It sounds like permission.
“You are still listening,” it says.
“Even here.”
Her throat softens. She takes a long, uneven breath. For a moment, she lets herself feel everything at once—the regret, the exhaustion, the tenderness that lives beneath it. She has been waiting for calm before listening, when all along, listening was what made her calm. She presses a palm to her chest and feels her own heartbeat. It is uneven, real, alive. It tells her she is still connected, even when she feels lost.
She looks out into the trees and thinks of all the times she thought she had fallen out of grace. The arguments. The silences. The nights she went to bed replaying what she could have said differently. Every one of them was followed by this same porch, this same breath, this same return. It hits her then: she has never really left. She only forgets, and remembering is its own kind of peace.
A neighbor’s dog barks in the distance. Somewhere, a car door closes. The world keeps moving, indifferent to her revelations, yet somehow part of them. She thinks of a friend who told her she seemed calm all the time. She wanted to laugh. If only they could see her on this porch, still learning how to forgive her own noise.
She picks up the mug again and takes a sip. The tea has gone cold. It does not matter. The taste grounds her. The rocking chair creaks again, slower this time. Her shoulders drop. She lets the air move through her instead of trying to control it. That is the difference now. Not perfect peace, but honest presence.
She used to believe she would outgrow the messy parts of herself. Now she understands they are her teachers. They show her where she is holding on too tightly, where she is still trying to earn love she already has. The more she resists them, the louder they become. The more she listens, the quieter they turn.
She whispers into the evening, almost like a prayer she is not sure who will hear.
“I am listening.”
The wind moves through the trees as if it heard her. A single leaf falls and lands beside her foot. She does not move to pick it up. She just watches it rest there, perfect in its stillness, without effort, without control. For the first time all day, her breath matches the rhythm of the night around her.
The porch light hums. The stars settle into their places. She is not peaceful in the way she imagined. But she is here, awake, aware, and quietly aligned with something larger than calm.
The Truth Beneath
Peace is not the absence of noise. It is the willingness to listen through it. It is the steady pulse that waits beneath every mistake, every reaction, every unfinished sentence. It does not scold or demand perfection. It just asks for honesty.
The night breathes with her now. She closes her eyes, not to escape, but to feel more deeply. And in that breath, something ancient and quiet moves inside her.
You will find it waiting, just behind your next thought.
Derek Wolf
Writer · Storyteller · Intuitive Teacher.
Stories like this one are written in quiet hours of the night.
If you would like to help keep them coming, you can do so here.
☕ Buy Me a Coffee