The Power of Silence

When I woke up this morning, at the crack of dawn, my first thought was to look out of the window and see what kind of day was lying ahead of me. Everyone else was fast asleep and I did not have to rush to get on with the chores, as I normally do on a Monday morning, as the school holidays were still on! Having woken up early, I knew I was going to have an extra hour all to myself, so I hurried off to the kitchen, put the kettle on and decided to step out for my early morning walk. For the past four weeks, I have been listening to my body and regularly going for a 3 km walk every day. I cannot describe the joy that comes from doing this without fail every day. The sound of silence has been my constant friend at this hour and as the morning progresses, the stillness fills up slowly by the rhythms of an action-filled day, the call of birds, the shuffling of leaves, amid the varying pace of other walkers in the park, who also come to savour the silence, without fail, walking to their own beats, humming along or listening to their headphones.

It is that time of the day when I am usually at peace with myself and my surroundings, as it happens to be the most profoundly silent of all my waking hours! I have never felt more alive as in these quiet mornings.

These are my moments of absolute quiet, when speech no longer exists, all noise is filtered out and a peaceful vacuum comes to rest between me and my chores. I guess this is perhaps because I have always loved silence. Having grown up in a quiet hill town, and spent most of my childhood listening to nature and the occasional barking of a dog in the neighbourhood, I have grown up to appreciate that stillness, which some people find absolutely unbearable.

To those who hate silence, this might appear to be sheer torture but to me, this is nothing short of a boon – the fact that I enjoy the absence of words and experience a sudden rush of thoughts that makes my mornings beautiful! I savour that vast emptiness of the hour to welcome dawn as the sky changes colours from dark to a splash of gold and crimson.

I am thankful that I happen to live in a quiet part of a very busy city and although it is far removed from the kind of quietness I have grown up with, I am happy to savour whatever peace comes by, before a lazy morning starts and noise takes over.

Linking this to the #MondayMusings post on #WriteTribe.