Silence

by Leila Skidmore

There is something about silence.

Something about it spreads over me like warmth. A comfort. It soothes and it heals.

Little noises, muffled sounds are always there, also.

The ticking of the clock ~ soothing, setting a rhythm to my thoughts, like a metronome would set to music. My own heart, beating in time.

I needed silence today.

 I craved it.  Busy, rushing, slept in.  Kids dressed, noise in the house, stresses crowding in my mind.

Worries battering my soul.  

Fresh wounds, their claws still firmly impaled in my heart, dragging it down.

Out the door, wind whipping my hair

in a thousand directions. I am Medusa for a moment.   Wet snowflakes swirling.

Air as cold as ice,

Freezing the skin I have been foolish enough to have not covered well.  Wind so strong I can hardly breathe.

Until finally I arrive.  In silence.

I can hear the clock & my heart.  I can hear the wind, also.

 Strong gusts blast at the building, the windows rattle. As I listen, I can hear that the wind flows and ebbs, like the tide.

There is a cycle and a pattern, there is a rhythm.

Even to this storm.

I think about words I’ve read,

Words which are imprinted on my heart.   How some twisted things in life are not able to be untwisted. How some things lacking can never be counted.

How there is a time and a season for everything.  

To scatter stones and to gather them.  To embrace and to refrain.  To weep and to laugh.  To speak and to be silent.

I think about the fullness of this quiet moment.

And so I sit.  And I listen.

To both the storm raging outside, and to the gentle power of the silence within.