Beauty on the Backroads

Stories of grace for life's unexpected turns

s-words

Silence {A series of S-words, part 3}

The air conditioner in our bedroom rattles while my husband watches an episode of “Father Brown” before he falls asleep. In the living room, the kids watch “Wheel of Fortune” shouting at the television whenever appropriate. Or not. The boy rocks in the orange recliner which has developed a squeak and between segments of the show, commercials blare their subtle fear: cancer, illness, injury.

If I turned off the electronic devices, I would still hear the cars whoosh past our house, the cicadas swell their song from the trees.

Is silence even a possibility in this noisy world?

Photo by Kristina Flour on Unsplash

—

Two months ago, I went to a writing retreat where each morning we had the option of spending 15 minutes in silence/guided meditation. I gave it a try because why not? The first day we sat in folding chairs in a circle. Our leader invited us to adopt a relaxed posture–shoulders back, spine straight, arms resting lightly on our legs/knees. We breathed and we listened to a reading of a short poem a couple of times through. Then, we participated in silence for 15 full minutes.

I thought it would be impossible. I thought I would need to fidget, that my body would start to ache, that my mind would wander. I thought it would be difficult to tune out the other sounds, but I found myself undisturbed, even when I knew people were walking into the space we occupied.

When our leader rang a bell at the end of 15 minutes, I could hardly believe it was over already. And I felt such peace in my soul.

The next morning, I looked forward to our time in silence as much as anything else. We moved to a different location, inside a house, but the experience was similar. And I left the entire retreat feeling that the time spent in silence and not doing was as important as the work I do actually writing.

—

Since then, I have not had a smidgen of silence. Nor have I sought it.

The kids run in and out of the house all day, and when they are quiet for a few moments, I choose a podcast or music to help me through my chores.

When the kids were younger, I used to crave silence. I would never turn on music when the house was empty because I needed to hear myself think. This led someone to remark that I didn’t like music, which wasn’t true at all. I just couldn’t handle more noise when I had the choice.

Now, though, it seems that even when the house is empty, I am choosing noise because I can control it. I listen to podcasts or let a Netflix show run. Another friend says she needs complete quiet in her house to write and I am the opposite. I would rather be in a crowded coffee shop where I am forced to focus on the work in front of me. In my house there are too many distractions, and if it’s quiet, I hear every.little.thing.

Better to have the noise I want.

—

The van was silent and I was not alone.

The kids sat in their usual seats while our new friend sat in the passenger seat as I drove us through the city. I had driven her to her appointments several times before this, and though I could not speak her language nor she mine, I felt pressure to fill the silence.

On our first meeting, I blurted out all the Spanish words I could think of. “Hola!” “Ninos?” “Siete y nueve.” It was as awkward as it sounds. I can’t use Google Translate when I’m driving.

I quit trying to fill the silence with words after the first few car rides, opting instead to just be present. I heard every sigh as she coped with the pain in her body, and I interpreted every facial expression inadequately. But I figured the kids would try to talk to her.

I was wrong. In the car that first time for them, they were silent. Our friend would turn and smile at them and talk about her grandson still in Cuba. When we were free of the car, then the kids, face-to-face, did their best to communicate although “no comprende” was a phrase we heard often.

The silent presence was uncomfortable. I felt like I should be saying something. Anything. And I hate making small talk. The idea of just sitting with a person without exchanging even the most basic of conversation is so unfamiliar in our culture. If we’re not talking to someone, we’re listening to something so we don’t have to talk to anyone, but do we dare spend time with ourselves?

What might we learn about ourselves and others if we stopped filling the silence and instead listened to it?

—

Noise distracts us.

If we have to focus on the sound waves, then we don’t have to focus on the inner workings of our heart. If we can’t hear the inner monologue then maybe we don’t feel so bad about ourselves. If we fill the void, we don’t have to think. Period.

We recently spent time with our deaf niece (she is so much more than this). She has an implant to help her hear, but my sister-in-law talks about how if she had to do it over, she might not have agreed to that. The implant magnifies every single sound, the background noise as well as the speaking. I remember my grandfather sometimes turning off his hearing aid because he couldn’t hear what he wanted to hear.

I can’t imagine choosing not to hear, but one of my favorite images of my niece from her time here was when she lay on a blanket in the park, feeling the music as it left the stage. She was transfixed. So was I.

Some part of me thinks she was the one truly hearing the music.

—

The house is quiet now. It will only stay that way for a few hours, unless the mouse we can’t catch decides on another kitchen caper tonight. All too soon, the sleeping house will awaken and fill with the sounds of breakfast dishes and coffee brewing and children either laughing or fighting or both. We will fill our day with words until I bellow in frustration, “No. More. Talking.”

I might get a moment of silence before being asked a question or told a story.

It might last a little longer.

Silence might elude me, but I will not stop seeking it.

Stolen {A series of S-words, Part 2}

I know I promised you a post on silence next in this series but things happen.

Like bicycles getting stolen.

If you’re following along, this would be incident #2 of a stolen bicycle. You can read all about the first one here.

This time around, it was our daughter’s bike that was taken, and while I’m less surprised that it happened, I’m still upset.

So angry, in fact, I wanted to give the world a big middle finger the day it happened. (I don’t mean to offend, but that was my honest feeling.)

A text from my husband alerted us to the missing bicycle, so our Friday morning, which had been going smoothly was thrown off-kilter. We searched the porch. I called in a police report. (“Yes, that was also us who reported a bicycle missing a month ago, thank you.) We dressed and took a walk up the road just to see if we could see any evidence of her bicycle in the general vicinity where my bike was found.

While waiting for my son to shower, I sat at the dining room table, choking down coffee, feeling like the world is a cruel place. Never mind that our president is threatening a nuclear war with North Korea. I was saddened by the feeling that we aren’t safe in our neighborhood, the one little corner of the world where we spend our daily life.

Our plan to ride the bus into the city and go to the library was delayed. When we finally headed out, it was an hour later than originally planned. And now we’d be eating lunch out.

At times like this, I want to curl up and hide out and cut off everyone and everything so there is no.more.hurt. My daughter, brave and strong thing that she is, has taken the news mostly with grace. She has not shed a tear, only asked if she has to use her birthday money to fix it when it comes back broken. Bless.

My anger does not surface often but when it does, look out. Just as quickly as my anger flares, though, tenderness invades. I want to be mad at the world and take my anger out on no one and everyone, but the only cure for my feelings is to stay open. To look for the good. To notice and see. To hold onto kindness when I’m on the receiving end of it.

Photo by Hanny Naibaho on Unsplash

The dispatcher groaned when I told her this was the second bike we had stolen in a month. The police officer said he was sorry this had happened again to us. They don’t have to show us kindness in the midst of their jobs but they did.

A bike was stolen. It is important. But there are more important things to protect.

—

The world tried to break me as we traveled into the city.

We sat on the bus listening to a mom in the back row tell her young child over and over again to “Stop!” He had already pulled the cord to signal the bus to stop even though they weren’t stopping, and she was irritated. My mind was still full of the black thoughts from our morning discovery, but I tried to get to a happier place. I have been that mom. I am that mom.

“That’s a college, too,” she said to the boy as we passed the school of technology. We had already been through the community college. “That’s the college Mommy was going to go to.” Just a hint of sadness in her voice.

My thoughts turned immediately to my own mother, who gave up college when she learned she was pregnant with me. I have no evidence that this mom abandoned college for the same reasons, but I wondered.

A few blocks later, we passed the county prison which is unimpressive on the back side but looks like a castle from the front.

“Your uncle is in there,” the woman said. I can only assume the boy waved because he said he could see his uncle. His mom explained that his uncle can’t see him, and the weight of these circumstances is heavy in my heart.

Sadness settles in and it’s all I can feel and see. As we drive through the city, I think of my uncle, a bus driver, who died too soon. I notice all the people sitting on their porches smoking in the middle of the day. What are they feeling? Have they lost hope?

The world is broken. And it is breaking me.

This is one thing a bike thief can’t take from me. Stealing from us only increases my awareness of the hurt of others. When I feel pain, I feel others’ pain, too. Suffering of any kind, as much as I don’t want it to happen, helps me see more clearly.

—

Later, we go to Target and are maybe the only family who is not shopping for school supplies. I am speaking in unkind tones to my children who are bouncing through the aisles and sharing eleventy-billion thoughts, including “Whoa. That guy’s beard is cool.”

I don’t even look because we live in a town with a lot of beards. Also, I have a husband with a beard, and I’m not in the mood to be impressed. But they keep.bringing.it.up. I’m just trying to get through Target without spending all our money or losing my s*** so we can pick up my husband from work and go home to eat BLTs for dinner. (Bacon, apparently, is a comfort food.)

We stand in line at the checkout and then I see it. The beard. It’s striped. Orange and black. And it’s on a Target employee. He leans toward our aisle to restock some snacks and I see the full picture: orange and black beard, significant nose ring.

“My kids like your beard,” I say because I feel like I have to say something if I’m staring.

“Thanks,” he says. “I’m rather fond of it, too.”

It feels small, this acknowledgement of another’s humanity, especially when it looks different than my own, but it was big enough to crack the darkness a little more.

Photo by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash

I’m not always good at this getting outside of my head thing, so I felt good that this was another thing the bike incident didn’t take from me. I can still offer kind words and a smile to someone else.

On our way back into the city, while stopped in traffic, there was a woman sitting in the median with a sign I could not read. My first thought was “Crap, I don’t have any cash or extra food.” We had just been to Target, of course, but what we had were groceries, not food we could easily give away. She was feet from a grocery store but we were running behind. My intentions are almost always better than my actions in these situations, and as we passed, I read that she was asking for shoes. The only shoes I had were the ones on my feet and they aren’t in that great of condition.

I glanced in the mirror as we drove away and saw another car pull up next to her and hand her something of significant size out the window. I want to believe it was shoes. Or a hot meal. It definitely wasn’t cash.

Witnessing the act softened my heart even more because sometimes I wonder if I’m the only one feeling anything at all for people on the street. I watch more people walk by than stop, and I myself walk by more often than I stop. So, to see someone else do something good encourages me that making a difference, changing the world, showing kindness, is not all on just one of us. It’s on all of us.

This thievery makes me suspicious of the people I see in my neighborhood but seeing strangers do nice things, talking to new people at Target, this reminds me that the human connection is strong and it takes work to keep it that way.

It is much harder to take a step toward knowing someone than it is to judge them from afar. It is harder to show kindness, to want to understand the motives behind an action, than to decide a person’s guilt on the spot.

I want to do the hard things. (Okay, I mostly want to do hard things. I also want to watch Netflix and forget about life for a while.) I even have this wild idea to invite the thieves over for dinner so we can know them better. They have not stolen my hope for a better way to life.

Photo by Patrick Fore on Unsplash

—

A final few words.

“Stolen” doesn’t always have to be a bad thing. We talk about our hearts being stolen by a lover or a child. We say things like “let’s steal away to the beach for a day” and it’s a glorious feeling of freedom. Or if we find a good deal on something, it’s a “steal” and we pat ourselves on the back.

Things, people–they might be taken from us by some person or circumstance, but only we can decide what will ultimately be stolen in the process.

Will a bicycle theft also steal my joy for life? Will it steal my hope that we might move to the city and live in closer proximity to people who might take things from us? Will it steal my compassion?

Or will my heart be stolen by a better, harder way of life?