August

I don't write well or often.
Feels like I don't have much to say.
I find myself reading other blogs
and feeling as if a prayer has been answered
a prayer I hadn't known I was praying for.

I'm ok with the quietness over here
most of the time.
Just when I think I can't stand it a minute longer
I get a reply on my blog and it keeps me motivated..
to keep hen pecking at this key board of mine..
plucking out one sentence at a time.

Most days I have a running dialog in my head
of things that I should write down but often don't,
cuz I think I will remember later, but won't.

I listen to the absolute quiet in the house.
No grandkids coming today.
Dogs are sleeping.
Even the appliances are quiet.
The AC kicks on and it startles me...
How long have I've been sitting here
musing about the silence?

Pretty soon school will be in session.
Buses, cars, kids all making their presence known
as they pass by my house on their way to school.

Will I welcome the noise?
Will it put me at ease to hear the signs of life
infiltrating our quiet summer neighborhood?

I live three doors down from a christian high school.
One block further down is the public grade school.
A block past that is the public high school.
A block in the opposite direction leads to a preschool.

So, maybe now you understand why it is that I notice
the lack of noise and absolute stillness of my neighborhood.

I'm not used to it.
9 months outta the year I've got noise and activity swirling
in and around and through my yard and neighborhood.

Maybe August is trying to remind me that it's time is almost up.
School starts here in a week and a half.
The college kids are starting to pack up and move out.
My nephew will be leaving soon for Illinois State.
My grandson will start attending preschool 3 days a week.

The noise and the sounds will be returning to normal
and I wonder if it will make me feel better to
hear life and cars and buses pass by my window.

It's not that I feel unwell. I'm not even sad.
I just notice the stillness and the quiet.
When I look out my window, glancing up and down the street
I see no one. No walkers or bike riders.
No kids, no teenagers. No one.

I should be thankful for the quiet.
It has allowed me to scratch out this post.
Not that I've said much here worth writing about.
But, Hey! Thanks for reading anyway.

I'll catch up with you in September!

Here's a little something from Frederick Buechner...I think it fits perfectly-

Quote of the Day: Quiet

An empty room is silent. A room where people are not speaking or moving is quiet. Silence is a given, quiet a gift. Silence is the absence of sound and quiet the stilling of sound. Silence can't be anything but silent. Quiet chooses to be silent. It holds its breath to listen. It waits and is still.

"In returning and rest you shall be saved," says God through the prophet Isaiah, "in quietness and confidence shall be your strength" (Isaiah 30:15). They are all parts of each other. We return to our deep strength and to the confidence that lies beneath all our misgiving. The quiet there, the rest, is beyond the reach of the world to disturb. It is how being saved sounds.

~originally published in Whistling in the Dark and later in Beyond Words