The Silent Seasons

I haven’t been here in awhile. Life has just been moving along, like it always does. Work, friends, family, travels – always learning how to be human. We’re back in the rhythms now, settling into the routines we often find ourselves in. And it’s in these moments, the ones where there’s nothing life changing happening, that I find myself thinking, “I’m not sure I have anything to say.”

Because there already seems to be enough yelling in the world, enough things clamoring for your attention, enough things wanting to be heard. I’ve never been the kind to join in with all the shouting. And when I have been, I often find that I say the things I regret most; trying to be cool, trying to be smart, trying to be lovable. Why did I feel such a need to be heard?

One of the most valuable lessons I learned in college did not come from a class or professor or book. It was the importance and place for silence, that sometimes there were stories you could keep to yourself as a gift and it would be okay. I learned I didn’t need to be heard in order to know my thoughts had value. I could sit on the sidelines and be just fine. There seem to be seasons of absorption and silence, of sharing and community. So in the silent seasons, I am okay now. I’ve learned how to thrive, how to grow in the quiet.

Yet even when there seems to be nothing to say, there is still work to be done. I must write, not because I have gained new enlightenment I feel led to share with the world, but because I know it keeps my soul healthy and happy. Chances are, it’ll live on in the pages of my journal, the notes section of my phone, an unnamed and unsaved document open on my desktop. But it will be writing all the same.

And these silent seasons always look so terribly normal and beautiful all at once. I’ll still be sipping my green tea and watching the cars pass by and working with kids and coming home to people I love. I’ll still be singing, stretching out, finding a coffee shop corner table and hiding myself there. I’ll be trying to find all the tiny beautiful things and gather them up, totally mundane and extravagant all the same. And I’ll still be writing, though it may not be any good, though I may be silent.