I spent some time at Intermission Bookshop the other day. Owner Kim Bruton was there, and she shared some of the backstory about how the shop came to be. It was a fascinating and inspiring description involving history, wisdom and personal growth that is worth sharing.

The building itself, located at 203 Center Avenue, was at one time the Queen Theater. The theater was a hotbed of activity for nearby Camp Bowie soldiers looking for entertainment during the early and mid 1940s. After the war and the closing of the military facility, the theater itself eventually ran out of steam. Several other businesses came and went at the location. When the Brutons purchased the building in 2019, they began renovations, but were unsure what sort of business the location would eventually become.

Kim had a friend who shared with her about her busy lifestyle. “She told me I was always striving,” Kim said. Kim’s friend told her that she needed to learn how to pause and appreciate the smaller things in life. She suggested setting up a chair in the backyard, in which to take a mindful break from the busyness of life. “My friend passed away in July of 2019. In honor of her birthday, in Feb 2020, I paused in that chair when I believe the spirit revealed to me that our building would be a bookshop”. Kim took this message on simplifying life to heart, creating Intermission Bookshop, the name of which is both a nod to the building’s past and its future as a venue for offering the wisdom of her friend to others. The message is everywhere around the store, from the entryway tiled with the benediction ‘pause’ to the nooks set up with lamps and cozy chairs to encourage us to take time out from a hectic schedule to simply be.

I loved hearing the story about the message of this place because it is something I believe many of us need to take in and apply. Before the technological revolution, people did not have to deliberately set aside time to do ‘nothing’. Contemplative moments were part of the rhythm of a day and came naturally. Tired from a day of work, people would sit on the front porch, just watching the bugs fly, listening to the birds. Without thinking about it, they were soaking in the sheer beauty and wonder in their surroundings, naturally being part of it, not a stranger to it, something I don’t think we can live well without doing.

Our society has an input problem. Phones are constantly blaring, a television is on in every room. Ads and information come at us with spectacular force and frequency. I don’t think the human body and mind are designed for this, and the stress, anxiety and depression many experience are perhaps witnesses to our inability to cope with the overstimulating world we’ve created.

Even time itself is considered a sort of currency which must be spent down to every split cent. I think a lot of people suffer from a lack of simply being, the lost art of stillness. We have to relearn how to pause. We have to practice learning to see the world again. The dawn is not just a glare on the windshield, slowing down travel time; it is a promise to our own being, a story written in the sky that speaks about resurrection, hope and the beauty and power of light. Rain is not only an obstacle presented to make a day more difficult; it is a lesson, a teaching, in restoration and the need living things have for it. The lessons of nature are lessons for our own being. They cannot be learned in a rush.

Life requires a pause, an intermission from the daily melee of constant noise, constant input. The story Kim shares with her customers is powerful and true. Moments of quiet understanding are few and far between for people in the current structure. These moments now have to be deliberately chosen. Taking a daily intermission is not just a good idea. It has become essential. A life without moments of quiet outdoors is a life that is not thought out, because the truths of being and the meaning of it are found in the world God made. The danger of a massive, endless rush to nowhere is real. It can be stopped. Grab a good book, head out into the backyard or the park and take your own intermission. Watch. Listen. Learn again the art of being still.

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Diane Adams is a local journalist whose columns and articles appear periodically on BrownwoodNews.com