The next N Judah train was 12 minutes away. It was a hot and steamy day in downtown San Francisco, and even at almost 10 pm the air in the BART station was still thick with heat.
I plonked myself on one of the round concrete slabs that serve as benches and pulled out my journal. I had just freed up half a day at the weekend and I had been aching for more free time. It seems I was scheduled to the hilt, and yes, some of it was for fun, but fun or not, I was tired and sometimes I just wished I had more time.
But that night in the station I noticed something that had passed me by until that very moment. Time was so precious to me that I had the idea if it wasn’t put to good use it was wasted, and I did not like to waste what little time I owned.
Within 5 minutes of the half day being freed it, it was full again. And that is where I had a bog fat aha. There I was yearning for free time but as soon as I got it I filled it up again.
I went from workdays filled with meetings and conference calls to weekends filled with brunches, dinners and get togethers-sure the latter were (mostly) fun but at the end of a long day, or soul crushing week, all I wanted was some free space.
And the words just tumbled into my journal:
In the chaos we yearn for it
Yet in the solitude
we try to fill it
as we afraid of silence.
This would be just the beginning of my journey to befriend and come to love silence, it seems there are myriad ways to fill in the silence, but on this day, waiting for the N Judah train to arrive, me and silence began a journey that would reveal so many treasures along the way I should have started it a long time ago.
It didn’t happen overnight but my relationship with silence and solitude took a new turn that night, one that has led me to come to love both silence and solitude but we will talk about that in future posts.
For now, I would love to know your relationship to silence, do you try to fill it so you can “make the most out of it”, or do you know that silence truly is golden in more ways than one?
Just two more days of this 40 day challenge, I must say that most days I would not have written had I not made this commitment to myself, got to love the power of 40 day practices to get our butts into action.
Good night dear one, it is dark and time for us to walk across the orchard to our bedroom under the stars, and for the next couple of days we have our favorite four legged, Zola, staying with us.
Until tomorrow, hugs n love
Sat nam