Silence: A Memoir
By: Sherry Klauer
In silence I come home to my soul. Much like settling in to my favorite overstuffed chair after a busy day, I feel held, safe, at peace in the company of me. I am able to breathe more deeply, slowly. In silence I am able to come home to the questions - and feel the answers. They are the same answers as before - slow down, wake up, come alive.
In silence the inner critic becomes shy, I am able to be enough. I am free, confident and able to embrace my wholeness. I answer to no one in silence - when I want to sit, I sit. When I want to walk, I walk. When I want to experience a cup of hot tea, I linger.
In silence I am able to taste, smell, hear, feel and see my food. I leave behind the mad rush to fill my hungry belly with enough fuel to tackle the next item on the ‘To Do’ list, and I am in the experience of eating with all my senses. Suddenly oatmeal is the most interesting thing that has happened all week. I anticipate the first bite, and then savor them all individually. The almonds crunch, the berries burst with a sharp juice, the honey is delightfully thick and sweet. The cinnamon is toasty, warm. I have the luxury of asking myself - do I even like coffee? I’ll investigate with this cup to find out (yes, I do!). How could I ever prioritize a screen or a clock over this experience? How do I lose myself so quickly in the world of words?
In silence I experience wonder and awe at the things that seem ordinary on any other day. The crunch of a brittle leaf underfoot. The delicate song of the lesser goldfinch. The apple tree bursting with fruit that literally brought me to tears. There is an awareness of what I am aware of that transcends knowing in the mind and awakens with sensation in this body - knowing delight not as the word but as the smile on my face, the quickness in my step, the tears of utter and simple joy.
In silence I am reminded to know what is right here - not what I have been striving to reach or find or do off in some distant place in some other time, but right here in this moment. I know what’s right here. This cup of ginger tea, on this weathered bench, under this oak tree, this human body, sitting. I can release the striving. Suddenly, everything is here. I am already whole. It’s already enough.
In silence my ego takes a nap - there is no one to please or impress, nothing to do or achieve. I discover that I am too serious when I talk, spending too much time indoors, face in screen and mind or mouth in a dialogue. I get fussy and particular there. Impatient and narrowly focused. In silence I play, I dance, I can be silly. My step is lighter, my spirit free. I connect with life around me in a different way - through felt sense and presence. No words necessary.
In silence I learn that when my mind is busy - I lose the message. My minutes, hours, days run together. My meals, my moments with loved ones blur like watercolors on the page of life. I may glimpse a message, a sign a warning - feel a pain, a pleasure, a hunger. They are all fleeting in the busyness - there is a moment of awareness and a life of forgetfulness until the silence falls. Then suddenly a knowing, a remembering. Oh that’s right - this is who I am! This is why I am here. This is all there is and this is beautiful.
In silence I feel more connected to life, to humanity, to Mother Earth. I reach out and touch the fruit, the bark, the leaves. I am in community with other human beings. I know their aliveness is part of mine. There is interconnection that can’t be spoken. It can’t get lost in debate, formalities, misunderstandings, egos of personality - they don’t exist here. I belong to you. You belong to me. We all belong to the earth, the water, the trees. There is no separation. There is the knowing that I am just a human in this body like all other humans - able to love and laugh, suffer and heal.
In silence I know pain in a more familiar way. At times I tremble with fear, hunger, lust, craving, attachment - that fierce wandering judging mind that lies to me again and again. But then there is a shift - I remember that this mind is (and will always be) with me. The silence may amplify its voice, but tempers its blow. I can practice softening and allowing. I can find peace with this war-torn friend atop my shoulders in a way that isn’t available when I am out in the world tending to others.
In silence I come home to my soul.