On, In and Around Mondays: Saturday Escape to Silence

I am sitting on the concrete porch outside my door in Texas. Today the Retreat goes on without me.

Earlier, the rush of shower water next door told me Brad and Dan were awake. I listened to the sounds. Open. Close. Thump.

Yes, I am supposed to be somewhere. Breakfast with its pottery mugs, blue-grey. A view of the Canyon. Sky and circling birds. I pull the sheets to my chin. I am missing scrambled eggs, English muffins, a chance to talk to Ann or Ann.

I feel the gentle push-back from my pillow. I am not ready to leave my dreams, which must have mingled laughter, the Milky Way, me-sized cactus, blue-green river and turtles swimming.

A blond woman with a smiling voice opens my door. “Housekeeping.”

“Sorry! I’m still in bed,” I say.

“Are you okay? Can I get you anything?”

“No. No thank you. I stayed up late. I’ll be out in an hour. Sorry!”

Shoonk. The door shuts. I pull the sheets over my shoulder. I should get up.

I catalog what I have already missed. The eggs. Tea. Ann and Ann. Soon it will also be the morning speaker and maybe Ashley Cleveland, who laughs and sings deep, and moves with her magenta (or aqua) guitar.



Out the window are splintery trees I don’t understand, and white rocks in the sun. If I move quickly I will make it in time for the songwriting workshop with Over the Rhine.



Shower. Hair brush. Tazo tea, made in the coffee maker. Bagel I brought from New York, cinnamon raisin, already buttered. I think these things will mean a movement towards the crowd. They don’t. Maybe because I open my window and feel the morning air.



It is decided. Brown and white Indian-print skirt, a sleeveless brown shirt, blue sparkle bracelet, the silver shalom necklace I just opened (a gift). Tea on this concrete porch.



I need the silence, which is riffled only by small sounds I cannot place. I cannot seem to hear, or maybe answer. Are the trees saying, Thtick, thtick, thtick? Or is it phah-phah-phah, phah-phah-phah? Or maybe tahk-a-shh, tahk-a-shh?

My hair moves in the slight breeze. Grasses, long, with tawny feather tops, move too. The silence, the mild sounds of not-silence, tickling trees and wooden swings and me. I need this unscripted song, which is just now being written by the day.



Laity Lodge photos, by L.L. Barkat.

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On, In and Around Mondays (which partly means you can post any day and still add a link) is an invitation to write from where you are. Tell us what is on, in, around (over, under, near, by...) you. Feel free to write any which way... compose a tight poem or just ramble for a few paragraphs. But we should feel a sense of place.

Would you like to try? Write something 'in place' and add your link below. If you could kindly link back here when you post, it will create a central meeting place. :)

Speaking of Silence

Of late, I've been feeling silent. Life has been full— among other things... writing, writing, writing, to finish my second book... and now cleaning up messes before I send it off.

One of the ways I try to achieve synergy in such moments is to use one platform to explore or sustain another. So when I began working on my book's 'Silence' chapter, and I had a speaking engagement on the book of Esther, why naturally I chose to delve into the silence of God.

[if you think you'd enjoy the irony of a talk on Silence, why, have a listen here]

Similarly, in the past few months, I've often used my prayer and devotion blog as a way to pre-write about the various spiritual practices that will show up in God in the Yard.

Sometimes people ask me how I get it all done. Blogging, writing books, home educating, public speaking. It is this kind of synergistic approach that makes things work. Well, and the willingness to sometimes descend into silence.

Old Chest photo, by L.L. Barkat

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