Quiet

It's still fairly quiet here this morning. Brian is off to work already. Kathleen not yet up. Elizabeth seems to be settling into an early morning nap as she nurses. I'm enjoying the quiet knowing as I do that it will soon end. Kathleen will call for me and come down the stairs and run over to Elizabeth with an enthusiastic, "Hi, Sister! Hi!," which will be all the more exuberant if I suggest letting sister sleep. So I enjoy the morning quiet but don't quite settle into it.

Last night when I finally wrapped up work at 10, I turned of the computer and sat down with a new journal. The girls were both long asleep. Brian was eating rhubarb crisp in the kitchen. The rain had slowed again from its torrential onslaught. It was quiet. Brian's spoon and my pen the two noises I heard. And I loved it.

I can't tell you how much I love quiet these days. I rarely listen to music if it is my choice. Most mornings I don't even bother to turn on NPR anymore, knowing that Morning Edition will be drowned out by clamoring and that I'll have audio overload. Quiet.

It took me some time to get here to this place where I could love quiet, because I remember another quiet, a terrible quiet.

Two kids asleep quiet is very different from one baby dead quiet.My house is rarely quiet these days for which I am grateful because I know the emptiness of that other kind of quiet. My house is rarely quiet these days, but when I is I sit and savor it.

Wishing you some moments of quiet and peace in your day, whatever shape that takes for you.