Enjoy The Silence

This evening I got a call from a friend. Her son was admitted to the hospital, and she was waiting for word on his condition. As I waited with her over the phone, our conversation took many turns from serious to light to reminiscent. I have known her since she approached me in the library in college 30 years ago, and she told me something about herself that in all this time I never knew. We found reasons to laugh about it, which is something we both needed, and somehow we ended on whether people roll joints anymore and how all these edibles and Jules have removed one of the best parts of getting high. I don’t miss the high, but I do miss the shared experience. The glow of the lighter through the smoke. The scent. The friends. The calm. The music.

Her son is going to be okay.

Today I had exactly two conversations, and during both of them I learned amazing things about amazing people.

As I watched tv tonight, I thought about all the time I have wasted staring at that box on the wall, but then I remembered the juicy parts of the day and I felt okay.

I read once that offering your time is the greatest honor you can bestow.

Some of the best moments I have shared were spent in silence. Watching rain wash over a lake with someone I never got along with is one of them. Sitting in lawn chairs in a pasture in the middle of the night watching the stars with my brother is another. Listening to Joe Cocker on vinyl while eating habanero salsa and chips at the kitchen table with my father-in-law is a random memory but a cherished one. Likely best of all was lying in the grass holding kite strings with my three-year-old. She and I turned to look at each other while we held our kite as it soared way up high. I could relive that moment of silence for the rest of my life.

There are many others. I collect them.

For a while now, I have felt sad that my adventures are running out of time to find me and that life has fewer surprises ahead. But I have many more bottles to fill with precious, silent moments, and I have a good 40 or 50 years of shelf space left to store them.