In the Company of Silence

The house was pleasantly cool, with the sunlight streaming in gently, keeping the surprise weekend warm weather and its almost summer heat outside. My son was at his college job, my husband on an errand for more potting soil, the cat was snoozing in his basket in the sun, and the dog kept me company relaxing on the cool tile of the kitchen floor as she shuns the heat in her black furry coat. I smiled. The aloneness felt healing, cozy like the touch of a soft sweater. The silence around me, in me, felt like company. The sensation was similar to soft strokes of a paint brush on a fresh, blank canvas, the possibilities open and intriguing. The colours all around me, the objects in our house all around me seemed to be asleep comfortably as well, alongside the dog. Everything seemed soft, like chalk powder of pastel hues. I felt at peace. The last ten years I have had many a chance at practising the art of solitude. Losing my family had dropped the bottom out of my world. Instead of fleeing the demons and the hurt, I tackled both head on, got into therapy and started to write. The writing part had been a life long dream, and on a day like today, with time coming to shore in waves of relaxed rhythms and sounds, all the aloneness, all the struggle to make sense of all the loss, were bearing fruit. My memoir "Lioness in exile" was now on Amazon.com under the category of cultural biographies and women's poetry. After 3 years of hard and steady work, that felt really good. Part two, "The Long Way Home" had already over 20 entries. I was finally doing what I had been dreaming of doing for 40 years. The best part is, now my son is writing, too. I thought how when you can accept the silence in your being, how fears of all kind lose their grip. Even though I have spent more time alone these last 10 years than I have in my entire life up until that point, I feel a strong sense of connectedness, of belonging on a very basic level. I find myself becoming more accepting of my limitations, my mistakes, and of the limitations of others, far and near. It is a very freeing feeling. I find myself face to face with myself, and I am pretty happy with who I see. In the company of silence I am finding a deeper connection to myself and my heart and soul, and I am finding it allows me to connect in a more genuine, deeper, kinder way to life and the people in that life with me. I have no illusion that I will continue to make mistakes, disappoint as I recently did, but I will continue to move forward and learn, in peace and acceptance, forgive myself and others, as I continue on this mysterious, amazing, infuriating, awesome journey called life.