Adirondack magic. Perfect place for silence.
Does silence carry the same weight as noise? Is quiet as valuable a life commodity as talk, TV, radio, video, movies, music?
Yesterday I was at the gym. The gym is a public place, and people, within reason, will do what people will do. Which is to say, talk nonstop for 20 minutes in the hot tub. And talk. And talk. While the music from the speakers blasts. Nice music. Happy talk. But could I have gone to someone in charge and said, “Could we now have 20 minutes of complete silence?”
Probably not.
In my home, I sometimes insist, during the negotiations about who gets custody of the remote, that opting for an hour of no TV is as viable an option as a certain channel. Occasionally, if I insist with a bit of gusto, we do have the gift of that hour.
Silence is powerful. Silence is not nothing. Silence is rich and full and allows us to be with ourselves without interference or mediation. A lovely book I read recently was about a woman who for almost a decade kept every Monday a silent day. She had a husband, two sons, responsibilities. But maintaining silence kept her centered and whole, and gave her to herself in a unique way.
I don’t have the courage yet to inject that sort of practice into my schedule. But I aspire to it. I think it would nourish and sustain me. I crave peace, serenity, simplicity. Silence gives me those.
Over the years I have gone on several silent weekend retreats. Delicious! This was not an enforced silence, like in second grade when the scary teacher threatened some horrid punishment if you made a peep. This was a chosen silence. There were others present. We didn’t talk. We smiled at one another, handed each other a coffee cup, held a door. We were in silence, together. Our silence was rich.
Even during the day, when I choose to turn off NPR, skip Netflix, take a few moments to just be, I am nurtured. I can hear that still small voice, the me that lives in me as me.
That’s a gift.
I love people, conversation, TV, music, NPR, Netflix. But I love silence, too. You?