I ski uphill, slicing through ice and punching holes in the snow. My breath comes heavy and steady. At the top of the hill there is a small break in the trees where I can see the lake. I stop and realize I am the only thing making noise in this winter mountain world. The silence stuns me.
Be still, it invites. Become part of my quiet.
I breathe and listen, trying to heed the call, but there is an unwelcome and inevitable churning in my mind. In this hushed place, I have nothing to force feed it and no way to turn it off.
I am afraid, I admit.
I’m afraid of aloneness. I’m afraid of quiet. In my loudmouth world there are words, words, words. Other people’s words. There is no space for anything else. The constant fulness and chatter is exhausting. But it’s comforting, too.
In the quiet aloneness, I find things I don’t understand. I am found by things I hide from.
The water, not yet frozen, has a million tiny ripples. The sky is fading, turning the landscape shades of dark blue and green and grey.
The winter world sighs. It does not speak. It is sleeping, healing in hibernation, preparing for another summer of waves and laughter, holes in the sand and sunscreen oil on the water.
I do want to be part of the quiet, to surrender to it. The words, words, words come and go. And I let them. Eventually they are replaced by senses—raw air, glittering water, shivering moss on evergreen trees, my skis pressing down and the earth pressing back. Sounds absorbed by snow.
I am healing, too.
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