We have cold noses in Asheville....and cold hands and toes, smoke coming out of our mouths.........It's been really cold, the minus temperatures with wind chill, brrrrrr. Bundled up, people are huddling close. Ah, this is good. The cold knows what it's doing. '-) Letting nature hibernate and attracting people to stay home, light fires, and walk close to one another. Though the sun shines, the pulse of the city is subdued. It seems so are our lives.
Walking remains a joy, a high light to the day, a respite from my constant pushing to do or be or think or produce or somehow prove myself. On the walk, there's only the walk. And potential silence, no cars, a windchime instead or a bird or listening for the breeze's quick brush through......almost still and silent.
Here's a thought from Thoreau that I find some truth and some agenda in::"If a man walks in the woods for love of them half of each day, he is in danger of being regarded as a loafer. But if he spends his days as a speculator, shearing off those woods and making the earth bald before her time, he is deemed an industrious and enterprising citizen."
Here's dear poet Robert Frost::
Whose woods these are I think I know.His house is in the village, though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
I think in winter we have fewer miles to go before we sleep. Sleep seems so relevant to winter. It demands we sleep well, and perhaps even more hours of the night. My energy is often sapped from walking Scout three times a day as well as working and moving and being. The number of layers, two pairs of socks, sometimes three shirts, a scarf, and a big coat is a job in donning. Yesterday, I wore two hats, the warmth of which I wouldn't have thought, but wow, you might try it! I'm tired at the end of these days, which are not always productive ones at all. I sit a lot. And think or read. Writing comes when it does. But not a lot of activity going on here in me. I'm home and feel at home being home, my own form of hibernation.
Sleep comes earlier in the night's path than in the spring and summer. Some magnetic force takes over and being in bed seems like the next step in my day. And the rite of sleep each night alters itself, but I find that I am listening for silence. An interesting endeavor, listening for silence. I don't live overly busy nor do I hear too much traffic or people while at home. Music plays a small portion of my day, the tv barely at all. Still silence is something that one must tune into, otherwise the levels of communication inside have much to say. So before the light goes off, but after reading, I've been listening for silence and feeling into it and looking for it too. Can silence be seen if not heard. And how ironic is this that listen and silent rely on the same letters.
the book of silence is the book my mother gave me for Christmas. Every Christmas since I was very young, my mother gives me a book. Either one she discovers from reading and perusing as many new york times and new yorkers as she does, or one I pick and make a particular request of (I dearly remember my W.H. Auden anthology that blew away in August of 2005 but which she replaced on December 25th, 2005). This year the book of silence. Reading any book we tend to get absorbed whether it grabs us or not. We try to identify and participate in the writer's story.
In my life, I've enjoyed my own company since a child, so Maitland's pursuit resonated with me immediately. Staying single through my life, there's a lot of solitary time and a lot of quiet that I wouldn't call silent. No other bodily life other than mine (Scout is a quiet, gentle dog). I didn't know about silence like Maitland's silence, but my mother knew me well enough to know I would be absorbed. And I am....thanks Mom!
The front flap reads::"In her forties, after a noisy upbringing as one of six children and an adulthood as a vocal feminist and motehr, Sara Maitland found herself living alone in the country and, to her surprise, falling in love with silence. In this fascinating, intelligent, beautifully written book, Maitland describes how she set out to explore this new love, spending periods of silence in the Sinai desert, the Scottish hills, and a remote cottage on the Isle of Skye....Maitland's journey into silence holds surprises and setbacks, but mainly reveals a deepening happiness. Her story culminates in her building a hermitage on an isolated moor in Galloway, and as she guides readers through experiences of silence in this new home, she evokes a sense of peace that includes the reader in its intimate tranquility.
I promised my friend Guy to lend him my book when I finished it. .....Having finished it last night, I find myself unwilling to lend it away. I want it here through the Asheville winter, where and when I intend to pursue and attend to more silence, perhaps more peace. More dark and by way of that more light. I think that's what this book is offering::in our loud and unclear times, silence is a balancing ingredient.
So seeking to stay covered, shore up my energy, keep a low profile, be small, place a gentle footstep on the earth, I hope to silently make myself of it all, instead of above it all.
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