in good company
February 10, 2017 § 5 Comments
This morning the library was a contrast of sunlight and shadows, soundless save for the quiet industry of my work; staccato keystrokes interrupting the gentle hum of a singular overhead light. The effervescent conversations that drift across Friday’s desks were replaced by the intermittent punctuation of unanswered calls as the telephone marked time with tones that wound through the air like the plastic cords I once twirled around empty thoughts.
I nestled into the noisy silence with the delight of my childhood fondness for the company of books, moving between the dust motes as I navigated well tread routines to a soundtrack of solitude. The occasional scrape of metal against the book depository or the weighted thump of materials tumbling into the carpeted recess of the cumbersome bins were mischievous reminders of my luxury. I was a child left to wander familiar nooks, curiosity curbed by the holiest of admiration for the sanctity of so many carefully constructed stories.
Hushed footsteps and squeaky cart wheels I drifted down empty rows of sleepy books, while outside the sun chased away the new fallen snow as the gutters shed their burden in pregnant raindrops against the concrete.
silence
February 4, 2016 § 4 Comments
It is my favorite sound. Second only to my children’s laughter or our pup’s eager paws scrambling an anxious greeting.
Peace pregnant with ideas that move fluidly in the space between speech; truth we hold tightly against the brashness of daylight, like a sacred mantra of self.
In my stillness I am more intuitive, less responsive to my surroundings; more attune to a gentler voice.
This week I can feel the conflict of thought against the noise of the mundane, the friction of demands that interrupt a sanctity of silence.
Words like promises on the tip of my tongue, lost to a language of busy distractions.
Rather than wrestle the noise, I am moving more stubbornly within it; reaching just past the cacophony for quiet.
translating silence
May 13, 2015 § 2 Comments
A snippet of a thought, a piece torn from the work that was lost last month. A forgotten scrap that I had absently extracted.
What words do we speak when we have nothing to say, but an urgent need to fill the silence between goodbyes?
To be remembered and to forget.
How do we begin from an ending?
the weight of silence
January 24, 2013 § 2 Comments
For the last two evenings I have been reading a book with my daughter whose characters have gifted us insight into the weight of silence. A young man born without the gift of speech created a dialogue of silence that has settled into a thoughtful distraction.
I often think of silence as a living organism that fills space and noise with value. Without the delicate balance of silence, sound would be hollow.
Today my mind was preoccupied by the thoughts we shape into words, crafted with intent, and the words we steal away for ourselves into silence. Words of comfort we do not share, apologies we hide beneath defensiveness, honesty cloaked in polite clichés. Of course there are also those words whose harm is more damaging than silence.
Recently another’s words and silence have allowed me a glimpse of truth reflected in the space between us. I think of the words I wish I could take back and those I wish I could have shaped into sound beside the words they’ve chosen, all the while realizing the lessons I have gained in self and friendship.
It is a small moment. Nothing novel or noisy in its truth, but a timely reminder and a moment of clarity at a well placed intersection in my life.
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