All the Quiet Places

I’m always drawn to the quiet place. The unnoticed window in a room full of chattering people. Or the shady tree with its heavy, ancient, silent arms. Or the little creek far from the house, where the water babbles softly, where a person might drop all their secrets and watch them float away.

Silly, isn’t it?

That I should be this way. That I should always be drawn to things alone, things quiet, things that rarely ever change. Sometimes I close my eyes and imagine away the time. I pretend it isn’t today. I look at the trees and the land and think it must have looked exactly this way a hundred years before. Did it?

No, I suppose not. Floods and wind and man have doubtless changed everything. But it’s nice to imagine. It’s nice to get all tangled up in the quietness, to close your eyes and feel as if your feet belonged to the ground you stand on. What is it about this air? This place?

When the wind moves, it smells like the breath of newness. When the trees stir, it sounds like music. When the water splashes and ripples over my toes, it feels like reality and magic all mixed up.

I love the quiet places.

I love the land. This land. I love the way even the dirt gets into my veins and consumes me. Maybe it is silly. Maybe no one else thinks about quiet places and maybe, in a room full of bustling noise, the last thing they long for is a glance outside a lonely window.

But if you ever see me looking away or escaping for a bit or strolling alone in some forgotten field or woods, please forgive me. It’s only that they beckon to me, those quiet places.

They beckon and I must come.