Quiet Thoughts

Funny how we vascillate to extremes.

For most of the last week I avoided silence - filling every space with background noise. Last night a friend pushed me into creating a space of time that was filled with nothing but silence, stillness, prayer. Today I find myself pulling back from noise (internal and external).

I came home from work at noon. I was feeling queasy, achy, exhausted, and had a headache and probably a fever (I don't actually own a thermometer, so it was kind of hard to confirm that). I thought I had the flu. Maybe I do - who knows? But usually when I have the flu, I get the extraordinarily high fever and constant puking for three days kind. I was hungry when I got home. So I made chicken fingers and french fries for lunch (a favorite comfort food AND a quick meal) ate, and then fell asleep on my couch.

I slept on and off for two hours on the couch. What does it say about the way I've been able to sleep lately that I've slept something like 7 hours in the last 24, and two of them were on the couch in the middle of the afternoon when I should have been at work?

So, I'm laying here, enjoying quiet.

Funny the things you notice in the quiet.

Like how the heat vents in our house are actually really creaky. And how the neighbors upstairs don't often walk - they run from place to place in their house. Or when they do walk, it's heavy-footed and purposeful.

I'm enjoying quiet.