Silence has not always been comfortable or comforting for me. Silence - not merely not talking or being alone, but true silence, no music, no TV. No computer, no digital reader, no background noise, no distraction. Just me, my thoughts, my surroundings. Quiet, stillness. Quiet enough to hear my breathing, to feel what I'm really feeling, to hear the inner dialogue that I would rather ignore. Silence for a great part of my life was disquieting.
I have a long history with trying to cultivate a friendship with silence. I cannot count the times I tried to meditate and gave up, unable to still what Buddhists aptly call my "monkey mind" for even a nanosecond, unable to resist rebuking myself for my inability. It was challenging 40 years ago when I first tried, virtually impossible, even without the many distractions available today. I was newly divorced , living alone for the first time, overwhelmed by conflicting emotions and an uncertain future. So I turned to journaling. To slow down the chatter, to capture it on paper so I could see what I could not bear to hear.
Over the decades now, I've written on loose leaf paper, in college composition books, in Italian leather journals with gilded leaf edges. I've written snuggled into the corner of a couch or a favorite comfy chair. On airplanes, in hotels, late at night when I couldn't sleep, in the middle of the day when I found myself obsessing with an idea for a project or a problem that needed resolution. Initially I had to have background noise, other people nearby, the TV, eventually soothing music.
But I wrote almost every day. I wrote when I didn't have anything special to say. I wrote when I thought I had something profound to say (on rereading some of it, I only thought so.) I wrote when I had cancer and I wrote volumes when John had cancer.
Along the way, journaling evolved from habit to routine to cherished ritual and without realizing it, I learned to slow down the chatter, turn down the volume. I became comfortable with discomfort. I turned off the TV, turned off the music. I remained quiet after I stopped reading or writing. I discovered solace in the sound of a distant mourning dove. Came to hear the breeze in the trees outside our home before I could feel them. Began to listen for the spaces between sounds.
Maybe I assign too much credit for this to journaling. Maybe this comes naturally with age, with weathering personal loss, with being unwilling or unable to endure the assault of modern technology, the incessant noise. Maybe I would be welcoming silence without all those composition books and gilded journals. Or maybe it's that the distractions have become something to distract myself from? But I look at the folks with their earbuds, and phones and tablets and wonder if/when they will make friends with silence.
Sometimes, in the total silence of the night, when John reaches out to take my hand, or I reach out to reassure myself that he is still there, the sudden thought that I might face this silence alone can take my breath away. But now, more often that not, I reassure myself that I can.
I have a long history with trying to cultivate a friendship with silence. I cannot count the times I tried to meditate and gave up, unable to still what Buddhists aptly call my "monkey mind" for even a nanosecond, unable to resist rebuking myself for my inability. It was challenging 40 years ago when I first tried, virtually impossible, even without the many distractions available today. I was newly divorced , living alone for the first time, overwhelmed by conflicting emotions and an uncertain future. So I turned to journaling. To slow down the chatter, to capture it on paper so I could see what I could not bear to hear.
Over the decades now, I've written on loose leaf paper, in college composition books, in Italian leather journals with gilded leaf edges. I've written snuggled into the corner of a couch or a favorite comfy chair. On airplanes, in hotels, late at night when I couldn't sleep, in the middle of the day when I found myself obsessing with an idea for a project or a problem that needed resolution. Initially I had to have background noise, other people nearby, the TV, eventually soothing music.
But I wrote almost every day. I wrote when I didn't have anything special to say. I wrote when I thought I had something profound to say (on rereading some of it, I only thought so.) I wrote when I had cancer and I wrote volumes when John had cancer.
Along the way, journaling evolved from habit to routine to cherished ritual and without realizing it, I learned to slow down the chatter, turn down the volume. I became comfortable with discomfort. I turned off the TV, turned off the music. I remained quiet after I stopped reading or writing. I discovered solace in the sound of a distant mourning dove. Came to hear the breeze in the trees outside our home before I could feel them. Began to listen for the spaces between sounds.
Maybe I assign too much credit for this to journaling. Maybe this comes naturally with age, with weathering personal loss, with being unwilling or unable to endure the assault of modern technology, the incessant noise. Maybe I would be welcoming silence without all those composition books and gilded journals. Or maybe it's that the distractions have become something to distract myself from? But I look at the folks with their earbuds, and phones and tablets and wonder if/when they will make friends with silence.
Sometimes, in the total silence of the night, when John reaches out to take my hand, or I reach out to reassure myself that he is still there, the sudden thought that I might face this silence alone can take my breath away. But now, more often that not, I reassure myself that I can.
