quiet.

I've been quiet lately. Not just on this blog; although, yes, I realize I haven't posted in a while.

I've just been quiet lately. I think it has to do with the open space created after so much has been pared away. It's the second phase of minimalism: where once you had to negotiate corners and navigate through the thicket, suddenly life is an open, harvested field. I'm reminded of the final line of Sunday in the Park with George, "So. Much. Possibility."

I guess it's not surprising that so much possibility has simply returned me to my roots. I'm back in the dance studio again. I'm reading really good books. I'm taking the time to plan and cook food that I love. And I've committed to ending each week at the stables, riding across the pasture while the sun sets. After so many years of constant output, pursuit of achievement, and over extending myself to the point of exhaustion, I'm finding that the things that make me the happiest are the things that have always made my happy...and, for the most part, they tend to be solitary things. Quiet things.

As a culture, we put a great deal of value on the notion of busyness. If we aren't multitasking, we're failing. But what I didn't notice until very recently is how much noise is connected to that level of constant activity. I've never had a particularly high tolerance for noise, but lately I've been noticing it even more. I notice it particularly as I leave my house in the morning and head into the city, where everyone and everything is busy. There is so little quiet to be found in the city; sometimes it feels like there's so little quiet to be found anywhere. And so I bundle up my quiet moments and tuck them inside, waiting.

Keeping Quiet

by Pablo Neruda

Now we will count to twelve

and we will all keep still.

This one time upon the earth,

let's not speak any language,

let's stop for one second,

and not move our arms so much.

It would be a delicious moment,

without hurry, without locomotives,

all of us would be together

in a sudden uneasiness.

The fishermen in the cold sea

would do no harm to the whales

and the peasant gathering salt

would look at his torn hands.

Those who prepare green wars,

wars of gas, wars of fire,

victories without survivors,

would put on clean clothing

and would walk alongside their brothers

in the shade, without doing a thing.

What I want shouldn't be confused

with final inactivity:

life alone is what matters,

I want nothing to do with death.

If we weren't unanimous

about keeping our lives so much in motion,

if we could do nothing for once,

perhaps a great silence would

interrupt this sadness,

this never understanding ourselves

and threatening ourselves with death,

perhaps the earth is teaching us

when everything seems to be dead

and then everything is alive.

Now I will count to twelve

and you keep quiet and I'll go.

-from Full Woman, Fleshly Apple, Hot Moon

Translated by Stephen Mitchell