Silence
Silence
It is quiet at my desk today. I cannot hear another thing, except the tapping of my keyboard.
It is almost so quiet that I can hear a ringing in my ears, but I know that is just silence. There is not a lot of silence in my life as a working mum, wife, daughter, friend, and the list goes on, and yet I feel so at home in it. Silence comes and goes in my life. Often at the most interesting of times.
Growing up in the country there is an abundance of silence, but if you listen very carefully, you can hear tiny sounds that creep out of the bush and into your heart. Like the warble of a magpie, the whistle of the wind in the gum tree leaves, or even just your breath.
There is always a moment of sound and often at that moment comes the opportunity for reflection. But do we, as modern people get the opportunity on a daily basis to reflect on our lives?
Even now, sitting at my desk, a distant plane overhead and a little tapping outside comes alive. The wind has just picked up, and leaves move graciously in the breeze, just like in the country, though now I am in suburbia.
I breathe deep, listening to the silence, it is almost meditative.
It is in the silence during mediation that we are forced to look inward at ourselves a body scan to see how our bodies are feeling, an opportunity for connection within. Sometimes this is hard and scary, other times it is joyous and warm.
This morning I contemplated the silence I was witness to. It was now that I would generally meditate. The air still as the sun had not yet risen, stillness within my home, the only noise I could hear was the gentle hum of my son’s deep sleep, and then, the silence was broken, by the garbage truck. My opportunity for reflection was gone. I forgot the put the bins out.
In my mad dash out the front to get the bins onto the street, there is a loud noise of the truck with lights flashing. Nothing like the sweet silence I had a moment ago or that of my life in the country. Suburbia brings with it noise and connection in many forms.
The garbage truck driver came straight to our driveway. Bleary-eyed and in my pj’s with no bra on, I smile him sweetly, praying that our rubbish will still be collected and that my top isn’t see through.
‘You put the wrong bin out’ he tells me, ‘it’s green week.’
‘Oh’ is all I can mumble in my semi-sleepy state.
I go back to change the bins over, ‘not recycling week’, I say to myself with disappointment, I’m always so proud of how much we recycle, I am after highly environmental- well I like to think so.
I have no idea what I’m doing as I stand there wishing I had my silence back again and that I need to try and cover my boobs.
‘Want me to take it for you?’ The garbage truck driver calls to me.
I look at him confused.
‘Your yellow bin?’
‘If you can’ I say, still confused, looking at the garbage truck to see where the divide is for the general rubbish and the recycling.
‘No worries love’ he replies. My yellow recycling bins flys up into the general rubbish compartment, and I realise I have committed a crime! A recycling crime.
I wheel back my bins with a heavy heart. All that effort, it will all the end up in landfill. I feel shame.
Walking back into the house, my son is now awake, ‘Mummy, whats going on?’ He askes. ‘Nothing darling, but I think it’s time to meditate and bring in some silence to the day before we begin don’t you think?’
I snuggle back in next to him, and he slowly drifts off back to sleep, and I am welcomed once more by the silence.
This time there are no interruptions, that is until the dog jumps up on my bed to give me morning licks. It’s a bit like life really, snippets of reflection in everyday moments. Maybe this is what life is all about.
When do you find time for silence?
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