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.