The Quiet

At night, one cannot tell by looking where the sea ends and the land begins. The boundary slips into invisibility and a quiet observer is left to wonder how to distinguish the shadows cast by rocks from those cast off boats. He attempts to determine the exact moment when last night’s evening turns into this morning’s dawn, or if there is ever a point when we are caught with one foot in both. The air is cool, carrying a breeze unforgiving that demands a few chills. Cold arms and legs keep one alert and acutely aware of his immediate presence.

I sink a little further back into the weatherworn, weeping white chair in order to take in the scattered lights along the landscape that so adequately mirrors the expanse above. Of course upon gazing upwards, I realize then that the spaces around me are all the same. Black, more like a deep midnight blue, with specks of streetlamps and tugboats and winking balls of gas millions of miles away… Sitting stationary helps, for there are far too few lights to guide me along these narrow dirt roads. I had to grope the sides of stonewalls to reach my place of solitude anyway. In order to solidify thoughts, I must remain still: nothing definitive happens when I am running about, and if something tries to, I find I always stop anyway so as to let life knock the wind right out of me. At the moment, I’ve made a conscious decision to sit silently and allow the earth to move about me. While we are at the very center of our own worlds, it is a quite a humbling human experience to recognize the earth continues to rotate despite us. What can happen when we choose not to contribute to the earth’s action and instead take an hour or two now and again to let her do all the moving in our place? I like to think that these are moments when we finally experience “seeing” for the first time, the type of moments that Annie Dillard writes of in Pilgrim at Tinker Creek.

These moments of inexplicable beauty are cathartic and essential to the core of our humanity; they are meant to accompany us at fallen places where we needed a boost of faith to keep us in the present and breathing, usually a boost we were unaware of needing in the first place. It is during these times when the head is separated completely from the rest of the body, or when the mind and the heart finally acknowledge their differences. Sometimes I catch myself attempting to process some sort of grief, recite lyrics to a song, or work out a life equation in my head but I always wind up at a dead end. I hit a brick wall, my brain smashing against my heart, leaving me with nothing but feelings—full feelings that are as solid as thoughts themselves. Quite unintentionally, I start being. It’s best when there’s nothing to stop me, though something always does. Usually it’s the unavoidable buzz of a mosquito or a chilling rain, and sometimes it’s my mother telling me for the last time that dinner is ready. But I always retreat inside, happy to have had a pleasant conversation with nature and recognizing that these moments simply cannot last forever if they strive to remain sacred.

The traveler will find that these moments happen just as frequently as they do when he is at home, and typically at unexpected locations. The tourist paths are worn too far down to find an authentic meeting with creation. Often times I have traveled with at least one other companion (for safety’s sake, as well as entertainment’s) and found it to be disabling to the cathartic experience. Selfishly, I desire solitude against the rough wind when climbing the Cliffs of Moher. In the dead silence of early morning, I try to be the first to slip from my tent, which is placed on opposite side of a small hill—a stone’s throw from the ocean. I can still remember the smell of salty waves caressing the soft beach as I went for a short walk among tall grasses and rabbits. Occasionally, the moments even occur when I am in a group of people, but only if they have allowed me to become anonymous. They strummed forcefully on guitars and rolled cigarettes, singing Irish rebel songs, while I sat in the shadow of their glory, silently observing and gleaning from their passion. But I have had just as many of these “seeing” moments in the cornfields of Iowa. Sometimes I’d lose myself to the glowing embers of waning bonfire or lay in the snow listening to my amplified breathing, unable to move because my snow pants were oversized and difficult to maneuver in. I’d see how long I could keep my eyes open to the falling flakes and wonder where they were coming from or what would happen if I lay there until completely covered… Waking to sound of a summer sunrise and pressing my nose against the window, I will never forget the smell of the screen mixed with the smell of freshly cut grass. Even at a young age, I knew that it was best to escape outside and walk barefoot through dew-drenched grass before anyone else could wake and join me. Examining a morning glory can be spiritual.

What I am saying is that I did not greet any more experiences than I think I normally would, I just simply found more time to run into and record them in the first place. Escaping to a far away country did offer me the luxury of later nights and mornings without obligations; two of the most vulnerable times for a heart-thinker like me. Ireland was perhaps one of the coolest things I have done. I refer to her as a “thing” rather than a country because the whole study abroad experience was quite the feat for such a conservative person as me. If anyone would ever ask me whether or not he should travel, I would undoubtedly say, “yes.” I think I would be the first to say that having reservations about leaving for a short while is a waste of one’s time. Yet I would also forewarn him about discovering a changed self (not an exchanged self), and a changed home that is somehow completely the same after months from being gone. I would advise him to embark on the trip there as well as the trip back with as few expectations as possible, and to recognize that we follow ourselves wherever we go.

But we will always have the seemingly random (wholly ordained) moments no matter where we end up. In brief, travel. Or don’t. Just “be here now,” and whenever your life starts to feel limp, wake up earlier than everyone and go for a long, thoughtless walk. It’s quieter then. I think we need the quiet sometimes.