My Visits With Silence

These days I hear the Silence more and more and I catch a whiff of my children. I remember this Silence. I was lucky if I would get a few seconds of it, maybe a minute while sitting at the park, gazing up at the clouds, walking with the stroller, watching the spring birds out my window or the moment before my baby would wake and I would wake first. This Silence held within it the weight of my love. My intentions. My authenticity. 

Silence would spring upon me and  I would lean into it, hold it tight until it was wrenched away from my white knuckles. I swear I could feel the tilt of the universe within that Silence. And then it was gone. Haphazardly skipping away from me, out of my reach. 

These days though Silence sits with me a while. It brings a book with it and snuggles up close. And I am reminded of my children. 

The Noise of childhood is constant; the toys being dumped out of baskets, the spinning laundry machine, the clanking of dishes into the dishwasher too early in the morning, the incessant laughing of a toddler, the questions of a six year old, the crying, the pretending, the TV watching and the fort building. I was constantly being roped into my children's world. I lived within the Noise for years. There was simply no time for Silence to visit. No time to daydream.

Every passing year though Silence would come visit me more and more. Instead of staying for a moment sometimes I was lucky enough to get a few moments. Silence had a way of creeping back in and before I knew it my children had grown into independent beings. These days they are more apt to run around the neighborhood with their gang of friends than want to sit with me and play. 

Today my 6th grade Loyal Companion barged through the door after skipping off the bus. The door slams. I know his visit here won't last long. He grabs a snack and I hang on to the Noise. I lean into the Noise. We laugh about a few odd things that happened during his day. He grabs his wallet while texting his gang and then as quickly as he came he is gone, out the door until dinner. Haphazardly skipping away. Silence enters.

The visits from Silence still tilt my universe. I have so much to contemplate. My dreams, my intentions and my authenticity wrap together constantly molding me into something different.  When Noise does return I find myself smiling, feeling within it the tilt of my future and I hang on until my knuckles turn white. 

But the Noise leaves too soon so Silence and I cuddle up again, canonizing Noise in all its greatness.