The newsroom is a busy place, full of buzzing machines and clicking keys and sputtering voices, and it often behooves the working newsman to step away for a minute, collect his thoughts and consider the world beyond the pages of the paper.

With that in mind, I often wander across the newsroom and through the breakroom to a little door that opens up to a tiny porch overlooking the river, with the Edmund Pettus Bridge towering majestically to the left and the great expanse of aquatic habitat stretching out to my right.

I watch the way the sunlight dances over the tiny currents that protrude over the top of the water; I watch turtles, some as big as shoeboxes and others as small as baseballs, clamoring for space atop a sunny spec of concrete; I watch herons swoop in and splash against the water where, only moments before, some gilled beast from beneath had peeked out for a glimpse of daylight.

All the while, I let the headlines I’ve heard and written tango within my mind, mixing effortlessly with the worries of work and those that await me just beyond its obligations, and find some sort of comfort in the stability and omnipresence and permanence of the river below.

As a journalist, as well as a concerned and vigilant citizen of the world, it can be difficult to disconnect from the seemingly endless thread of disaster and tragedy that permeates the news of our planet, our nation, our state and even our community – between violence and poverty, hate and apathy, greed and arrogance, one can easily be left short of breath when trying to keep up with all that is going on in our changing world.

For those who envision themselves agents of change, whether through their work or community involvement or simple humanity, this feeling of devastating helplessness is even worse.

But taking a moment to let all that the world gives to us daily, without any expectation of reciprocation or any volatile response to our distracted minds and misguided opinions, our violent thrashing about that means so little in the great perspective of cosmic reality, can be an effective way of recharging and realizing that, despite the monumental magnitude of our struggles and worries, we are in fact little more than organic matter floating in the void and our struggles, just like everything else, will one day disappear and make way for new organisms and ideas to flourish.

Simply put, we all need a few minutes every once in a while to take a step back and appreciate all of those gifts provided by the world that don’t hinge on the contemporary trappings of a fickle, frivolous and often mean-spirited world: the smiles on the faces of children and the sound of joy in their laughter; the aroma of a fresh-cooked meal or a towering magnolia in full bloom; fresh, Southern air in our lungs and sweet, Southern music in our ears – these are the things that pay no mind to the changing of times and lend no credence to talking heads, shrieking analysts or anything else.

When the sound of your own footsteps become a cacophony in your ears, when the weight of the world and all of its follies causes your shoulders to stoop, stop for a moment and take in the river – it has been here long before our worries began and, surely, it will be here long after.