Solitude and silence are both very important to me. The difference between the two: solitude is the state of being alone. Silence is quietness. No noise. No talking. Nothing. But the two often go hand-in-hand, and I love them both. I need them. As I said, they’re very important to me. Maybe because I’m an introvert, I don’t know. I suppose extraverts need the occasional silence, too. Actually, we all need silence at times. It’s just that some of us need more. My sister is extraverted. Social. She has several friends. And when I was young she was always going out a lot. I’m the total opposite. I am not social at all. Which is the good of social media in that I can still have some people to talk to, but I don’t have to be in the same room with them. I don’t have to leave my home to drop a message. I don’t enjoy going out much. I can deal with the occasional dinner out or something, but I’ve noticed as I age that even I don’t really enjoy that anymore. I can make just as good if not better at home, don’t have to put make-up on to do it, and I seem more tired after I get back from going out - mind as well as body. I’d just rather stay home. I love my solitude. I don’t mind being alone doing things I enjoy. Everything I like to do pretty much requires being alone actually. Reading, studying French and Icelandic, writing, practicing piano. These are all activities you do alone. Not like going out and having a game of basketball with the guys or something. The only games I’m really into are board games, and no one will play those with me, so…
Silence. I relish it. After a noisy weekend with everyone home I am so ready for Monday. Monday is my favorite day of the week. Thank God it’s Monday!! As soon as the other two are out the door, the TV is off and we go into silent mode for the rest of the day. Just me and the critters and my books and chores. I do break the silence with podcasts as I clean. But I like silence as I read and study. There was a time long long ago that I would listen to music through ear phones as I read and studied - back in my high school days and college year. I realized later that I really didn’t remember much of what I read with headphones on. Granted, the Cure’s “Mixed Up” through headphones got me through my second and last ever semester of college. But really, so much of what I read seemed to be lost. I didn’t comprehend it well. Wasn’t focusing. I know for some people this helps them, but not me. I’ve come to notice I concentrate much better with quiet and no noise. The only problem I have with that is the chatter going on in my head that I sometimes get lost in and notice I’ve read a paragraph or so and had not really been paying attention. There’s enough going on in my head to distract me!! Quiet is good, and not only for reading and studying, but also to just decompress. I like to sit sometimes with tea - and just sit. Watch out my window. Let my mind wander. My man Thoreau would sit at his doorstep for hours the two years he spent in a cabin at Walden Pond. Just would sit there and watch and think. Listen. One of the things that really stood out to me in that book was when he talked about the ice on the pond cracking in spring and how it would let out a loud booming noise. I could imagine that in the silence of the woods being so loud. Wow. You have to have silence to hear. Not just hearing the noises around us but to also reach down into our souls and hear. God speaks in silence. Have you noticed it seems to be when you’re just sitting around, meditating, or relaxing in the tub or on a beach or wherever that you seem to have your divine revelations?? Your answers to problems. Your ideas for projects. That still small voice of God within us is heard when we are quiet and unoccupied. When our mind is drifting and not focused on anything in particular. That’s when we really hear. I was exploring religions a few years ago and read about Quaker meetings. These are the church services I would enjoy. Everyone just sits in silence for an hour. That is the meeting. If someone seems to feel the need to tell the group something they think God gave them to speak, they speak it and share it. Otherwise, just sitting in silence. Maybe this is what Emily Dickinson meant by keeping church at home. She loved her solitude and quietness and wrote great poems. Sometimes when I can think of it, I like to separate my reading from my study with a small period of quietness in between. Sometimes I like to close my eyes and meditate. Try to clear my head from any thoughts. Sometimes I like to just sit and watch outside for a few minutes before beginning something else.
Quiet is good for us. It’s a balance to the chaos that is often our lives. It’s so good to turn to when I’ve had a busy day. It is healing. After I lost my cat Benji to cancer in 2019 and my mom a couple years ago, summer 2021, I needed silence. It helped me. It allowed my soul to sort out my losses. There’s a commercial I saw recently on TV for a medicine I forget now but I think might’ve been for migraines. A guy was telling how some days he would close himself up in a closet to get away from everything - “even the kids.” I thought it was funny, but it is so true!! I only have one, but he’s ADHD and super talkative, and I totally get it. Right?? I’ve felt that way before honestly. Or just wanted to go somewhere far away. Hey, I’ve gone out and sat in the car before. True story. Marilyn on “Northern Exposure” would go up on a hill and sit. I wish I had a hill like that to go to. It’s kind of hard where I am to find anywhere to go to be alone and sit away from home.
Thoreau says, “The silence sings. It is musical. I remember a night when it was audible. I heard the unspeakable.” Find some silence in your day today.