Listening in Silence

Like a child I sat in the sunlight

and played with the minutes as they went running by....

Like a child I would listen in silence

to the soft sound of evening as it caught up the day...   

                                            Rod McKuen, LISTEN TO THE WARM

As a child, I learned to listen to the trees, to the breeze, to the rustle of leaves and scurry of critters in the bushes. Shutting out the talk, the screaming, the motors running I could walk away and listen alone in my own silence.  

One warm summer day two eight year old girls, Diana, my neighbor, and I walked to Tar Creek behind the college football field, behind the college racket, and away from people watching. We found some stones in the middle of the creek where cold water bubbled up from underground. 

In the shade of the trees we sat on the stones and folded fallen leaves into cups to drink the fresh bubbling waters. Minnows swam around our bare feet, sometimes biting at our toes.

We didn't talk much, we were neighbors, not friends, but I knew her secrets from open windows on hot summer nights. No one came to check on us. We were in our own safe secret silent world of fairies, frogs, fishes, mice and birds. The gentle flow of water carried our wishes away on rafts of twigs and grasses. Fairies, after all, know how to live with nature. 

Silence is a true friend, who never betrays.  Confucius 

Over the years we left those memories behind. Our beloved retreat began to bubble red from the rust and blood of the old mines to our north. No children can drink that water now, nor sit and feel the nibble of minnows, nor listen in silence.  

The quieter you become, the more you are able to hear.  Rumi

The child in me still needs that silence, the quiet, the moments when my mind is alone with space and time. Alone, I find that silence in my long walks.

Listen to silence. It has so much to say.   Rumi

Last week my sister, Jonya, and I elected and to explore Norman and maybe a good sale on women's clothes. Instead, we ended up searching and finding silence.

Silence offers time for reflection.

We met for lunch around 2:00 after the rush. An hour later, our tummies full, we decided to visit the new library in Norman. How strange, I smiled to myself that two once athletic, competitive women would seek out the silence in walls of books. As children, we played outside constantly in our neighborhood. We grew up on a country club golf course, where we  played hours of golf, went swimming every summer day, best of all we explored from top to bottom the old four story Tudor style clubhouse, our second home, where we never met a stranger; where we learned to perform; where our lives were often in the spotlight, as the daughters of the golf pro, Johnie Stapp and his wife Helen.

Silence and Listen are spelled with the same letters. 

Yes, we are teachers. I spent decades working in libraries, Jonya spent decades studying and reading in libraries. So here were sisters, silently reading, looking pensively out the windows, walking up and down rows of books, smelling the warm aroma of paper, and relaxing. Our thoughts were silent, few words spoken, our walking gait felt older and slower, our greener years have passed by. The sale of used books grabbed our attention and pocket book. Then wondering around the stacks I looked at fiction and history books, Jonya looked at language, Christian themed, and self-help books.  We spent a glorious amount of time looking through pages of oversized and heavy "coffee table" books that took us away. Pictures from worlds we will never visit, but through those books we toured the world, not just the space between the walls of the library. 

Silence is a source of great strength.  Lao Tzu

The windows in our new library give a southern panoramic view of the Norman's downtown and the University of Oklahoma. Early spring vistas showed baren trees and brown grasses, yet in our blood we knew spring would arrive soon. We whispered a few words then floated away, lost in thoughts.  Later the sun told us it was time to leave, evening was catching up with us. 

Lost in a Flood of Images

My brain flies from one thought to another which is why I take Tai Chi and Yoga classes. After I left stretch yoga class this morning relaxed and focused:

1) I sat down to write about the flow I felt, and how important it is to stretch, relax, take deep breaths, lower my shoulders and smile as I look out the window and see the finches feeding. 

2) I sat down to write about the rabbit holes I've gone down in the last year and just yesterday. They make me laugh so much, especially the one in 1943 about the lady who flew through a bakery window.  (Wichita Eagle) In the best Hollywood "stunt girl" tradition Mrs. Francis Fayette, 532 East Harvard cycling on Broadway last evening struck a bump with her bicycle and sailed over the handlebars. She crashed through a plate glass window in a bakery shop at 718 East Broadway and emerged from the wreckage with nothing more serious than a tiny cut to her left forehead. (In the beginning before Facebook there was the news of the day.)

3) I sat down to write about the Flood of 1951 in Miami, Ok because it was on my mind from reading the News Archives on Miami in the early 1950's. Miami, Oklahoma History  It seems as though most of the newspapers were not saved, leaving a gap in my blog-- Miami Country Club, History   

Moments after I sat down my sciatic nerve pinched me without let up.  My head bobbed in pain. 

I fumed and kicked around like a child in a temper tantrum. Out loud I mumbled. "Leave me alone. I just want to write, not try out for a marathon. Let me relax..."  I stood and stretched with the right leg in front, bent myself to the knee, stood, repeated with the left and continued down the hallway, like a pigeon nodding and walking down the fence top (or a pigeon in heat, I call it), followed by downward dog, #4 standing stretch, and finally I could stand upright and not hurt." Ah, relief. Almost. My brain where did the thought train go?

“Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?”

“That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the Cat. 

Somedays I feel as lost as Alice in Wonderland.

Hours later, sushi for lunch, a load of laundry, a romp in the backyard with the dog, and I'm once again ready to write or not.

For the last two weeks I have been reading and collecting golf notes on my father's life between 1928--36, 1941--44 in the scrapbooks that he and his sister put together. This is my working station.

As I walked by it this morning while stretching in my pigeon walk, I noticed the framed plate in the background. Everyday for two weeks I have looked at those plates before I sit down. The rose patterned one on the left came from my Grandmother DeBacker's home, the two blue fishes were my mother's, the one on the far right is my plate with an attitude ("Give Into Temptation, It Might Not Come Again"), the framed one stumped me.

Godey Print, early 1930-1970's production by Salem China.

Was it the child bringing flowers to her mother? the child wanting attention? the stiff composure of the women?

I've carried this plate with me since my parents died and only this afternoon did I remember why and only this month did I find a way to display it.

We moved to Miami, Oklahoma in 1954, three years after the massive flood of 1951.  Now, I can remember seeing this plate hang on the green painted walls with faded flood lines wrinkled in the wallboards. In my child's mine of age six, I could imagine the fishes and how they must have slithered between the walls when the flood left this house in ten feet of water. Yet, my parents had hung this plate on the wall directly facing the stair case that I rumbled up and down daily. Did the water drip out of the nail hole? Did the fishes all die? I pondered these thoughts and many many more. 

Our home was 3 blocks north of the railroad tracks on the west side of Main St. We can see from the photo that those homes filled with water. 

I loved that old house on A St. Southwest. It held more stories than anyplace I have ever lived, and that framed stuffy plate is my reminder of the flood, I never saw.  My upstairs closet held a child's painting of "raw and bloody bones"; the beggar man and his children came by to eat trash from our garbage, unless mom saw them first and fed them food from our table; hobos from the train tracks walked by and begged food from our homes; before we moved in 'I was told' that the lady next hanged herself over the basement cellar and died; the sixes (Cantrell's) lived two houses up; the house on the north end burned to the ground one day while I was at school; and everybody had flood stories or river stories to tell except me. I often think I was destined to be a storyteller. A St. Stories Told and Retold is another collection of stories I wrote a few years ago. 

I missed the great flood and for the rest of my school years I heard those stories and never got tired of listening. During my eighth grade year Miami experienced another small flood while we lived on H St. Northeast. Finally, I had a flood story, but it ended with a tetanus shot and I didn't like the outcome one iota. 

Ironically, the flood of images and the floods of time all come back to me now. 

Although our roots may be flooded, washed away, burned to the ground, destroyed by tornadoes, earthquakes, volcanoes, and tsunamis we stoop, stop, look upwards for help and we cry, then carry on. Like in war and the images we are seeing that flood our hearts with pain, we see their broken roots but know that their spirits are strong. We pray for all mankind.  

Murphy Doodle's Winter Day

this is the most fun day of my life

letty and jack played in the white grass with me and i ran and jumped and ran and jumped, i even chased a ball and a frisbee but it was not easy

letty did not want to stay out and play with me, she left me outside and i found a bone to chew on while i rested on the cold white grass, i wanted to bury the bone but the dirt under the white grass only let me scratch it, that was strange

then it was time to eat

"No, Murphy, it is not white grass it is called snow. Let's practice snow, listen to me.  Snow, want to play in the snow?"

i nodded my head, i like this new word snow, i hope i get to play in it again and again and again

after we ate lunch letty stood by a the hot hole in the wall with scary flames in it, I walked to the window and barked to go outside

she said, no murphy, it is cold outside, we were just out there playing frisbee and now i am cold and standing by the fireplace to warm up

no, i howled

then i begged jack to go outside, I like to sit on the couch so i can watch jack all day long, he loves to play ball, but now i want to go outside so i gave him my most pitiful look, 

even please didn't work

he took me outside but then he slipped away from me and went back inside by the fire in the wall place where letty stood, 

i can watch them from outside because i have a table to jump on top of and sit in the window

i like being outside when other dogs are nearby so we can bark at each other, over the fence where i can not see lives quinn, my friend, we get to bark a lot when quinn stays outside, he tells me about his neighbor winston who runs up and down the fence, like i do with penny, my dog friend, on the other side of the fence

Murphy and Quinn, an Australian Shepheard 

quinn used to come over and play with me, we loved to chase and roll each other, sometimes we would take naps together in the shade 

one day quinn did not bark at the fence

quinn is gone now, letty said they moved away, whatever that means, it means that they took my friend, i still bark for quinn everyday but he does not bark back

quinn, i will miss you

Murphy Doodle will be a year old on March 8. He came to live with us May 1, and we have laughed and played ever since. He has even learned to write a story about his life.  I originally named him Happy Dog before we picked him up and carried him home. Then he became Murphy Doodle, but I still call him Happy dog when I hug him.  Happy Birthday, Murphy.