Learning to Stay
There are chairs that ask something of you.
You perch.
You lean forward.
You stay alert.
And then there are chairs that hold.
The kind with arms.
Wide enough to settle into.
Stable enough that you stop checking your balance.
I am learning the difference.
Lately, I have noticed how quickly I move to respond.
Not out of wisdom.
Out of habit.
The moment something happens, I feel it—
the urge to explain,
to name meaning,
to make the moment useful.
I have spent years training that reflex.
It has served me well in classrooms, conversations, and crises.
But it does not serve everything.
Some moments do not need insight.
They do not need framing.
They do not need to be improved.
They need a place to sit.
So I am practicing staying.
Not waiting for clarity.
Not collecting language.
Not preparing a response.
Just staying where I am.
This is harder than it sounds.
It is easier to stand.
Easier to speak.
Easier to offer something.
Sitting requires trust.
It assumes nothing is missing.
It allows the moment to remain unfinished.
I am not withdrawing.
I am not disengaging.
I am not becoming passive.
I am choosing not to extract something from every experience.
If something grows here, it will do so without pressure.
If nothing grows, that will also be enough.
It is good to sit with you.
presence, restraint, silence, formation, attention, staying, Forming 2.0
Forming 2.0 
Dean, this felt like sitting down rather than reading.
The image of chairs that hold and the trust required to let yourself be held landed quietly but firmly. I recognize that reflex you name: the urge to respond, to shape, to make something useful. And I appreciate the honesty of admitting that what has served us well doesn’t always serve what’s forming now.
“Some moments do not need to be improved. They need a place to sit.”
That line will stay with me.
This doesn’t read like withdrawal at all. It reads like consent to incompleteness, to trust, to letting meaning arrive in its own time. There’s a steadiness here that feels earned, not assumed.
It is good to sit with you.
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Thank you, Ulrich. You put words to what I was trying to stay with—the trust it takes to not rush something into meaning. “Consent to incompleteness” is right. I appreciate you sitting with me here.
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Oh this Is deeply beautiful. Learning to do this within myself. I have noticed I seem to want to give things a reason they happened or a name to catoligue it in my mind but some things Just need to be sat with. 💯 Wonderfully said Dean much love🙏🏻❤️🔥
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Yes—exactly that. The reflex to name, explain, or justify can be strong, even loving in intent. But some things ask for presence instead of meaning. I am glad this resonated. Thank you for saying it so simply.
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And it is not possible that one does not learn so ething or find a thought, a lesson of value when one does, sit down. Growth becomes inevitable. And that is equivalent to standing up tall, after a period of sitting. Such an interesting concept.
Your post was deep.
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