When Silence Calls

     My heart is filled with so many things, and yet my mouth is silent. One of the hardest things for me is to be silent. I'm not wired that way. I express my heart through my words. It's how I process. It's what I'm used to. I'm rarely in a position that requires silence these days, but today I find myself there.

Silence.

     When I was 19, I was fully immersed in a culture and language that I didn't understand. For weeks, I watched in silence. I listened to words that I couldn't translate, couldn't absorb, couldn't follow. I learned silence, a forced silence. My inability to communicate in their language was the beginning of learning to be silent. The moment my mouth was deemed useless, my eyes became useful. 

     I saw things I would have never noticed. Every detail, from the wind bumping into leaves then the leaves losing their sway to the exact shades of every piece of gravel surrounding my sandals . . . My eyes awakened. Mostly, they became aware that thousands of expressions accompany every conversation, and those expressions tell a story as well. When there are no words you can understand, no thoughts you can take in, you see. You see the crinkle in the corner of a mouth that simply says there's an understanding, the slightest squint of an eye indicating a clash between words and truth, a glance to the ground in a moment of shame, the thin layer of water that covers the entire eye just before it thickens enough to push forth a tear . . .  My forced position of honing in on conversations visually gave me a new sense of understanding. 

     A world opened up, a world formed not only by visuals but by tones: harsh, gentle, whispers and shouts, fast-paced rantings, persistent promptings, hesitant responses, casual nothings, intense discussions. The world without words had a lot to say. 

Silence.

     Ever been in a position where you can't say a word? Ever been in a place where your words don't matter anyway? Ever been in a place where you hear something you wish you never had? Ever had unplanned words come right out that even surprise you?

     Today, I embrace silence.   

     Today, I miss the word-less world. 

     Today, I will truly see the five loves that call me mom. I will watch when their noses crinkle and study their faces for the newest freckle that may have snuck up; I will choose to look at their faces when they're talking to me; I will choose to watch them, the way their legs plop on this couch, the way they hit the doorframe passing to another room. I will stare out the dining room window when they get home from school, hold this sweet 5 month old in my arms, and watch how the boys dribble, how many baskets each makes, see firsthand how the tears start, and smile from my window-view. I won't have to hear them tell me about it; I will know because today my eyes will see. When they have no idea I'm watching, I will adore them. 

    There isn't a spot on this 5 month old doll that my eyes have not studied thoroughly and daily. From her barely curved toenails, too minuscule to cut, to her thigh's rough patch of dry skin the size of my fingertip...I know her. I see her. I smell her. I touch her. I absorb this littlest of humans all throughout the day. I listen to her noises and know which one says she wants to be held and which one is her begging to go to sleep. I see her flailing arms and huge smiles tell me she's so excited to see me. It's so easy to absorb the word-less. But somehow, as the years go by, the absorbing shifts. It shifts to what they say, and how they say it. It shifts to what they do, what they demand, what they need, where they go, what practice they have, how well they do, how much they've learned . . . It shifts. It shifts so much so that words fly here and there and take up so much of my space that I get trapped in their web. The web that doesn't require that I see much of anything. I can type and listen, never really looking at my little one talking. I can throw clothes into the washer while answering a child, never glancing in his direction. I can fill a sippy cup, hand it off, grab another and fill it before seeing either of the children asking for a drink. I can kiss my toddler's boo-boo three times before I get the right spot because I'm listening to what happened at school from my oldest while the middle boys are arguing ten feet away. I wonder if I could even tell you what my kids are wearing somedays. 

     Today, as my mouth is quiet and my words are few, I will hear entire requests before cutting off my kids. I will hear their interactions, more concerned with their words than mine.

     

Silence.

     Although today I must be silent on some non-mommy levels, it has brought me to a place of embracing silence once again. So, despite how hard it is to blog without pouring my entire heart out, I am blessed to be brought to a place of silence on the homefront.