On insomnia, starfish, and the blessed gift of silence.

The days are moving at much too fast a pace for my liking, lately.  Frantic.  Busy.  Ever wild with pent-up energy and the cacophony of a children’s home in summertime.  The calendar pages splash with colored, highlighted marks and circles, scribbles and stars and arrows, methods to create visual alarm at the many must.not.forget tasks and events that keep us bouncing in and out and in and out the door again and again until the eyes get so heavy and the space in my head just registers nothing but overload, seeming to blink, on and off like a digital clock that hasn’t been set, in that warning red shade – malfunction, malfunction, malfunction.

With Husband away this week and tired as I’ve ever been in all my life, I lay last night, sprawled across the bed starfish-style, resting bones but hard-willing my eyes to close, my soul to rest, and there was little.  No sleep for the weary.  And the hours ticked by but the thoughts just piled on and the mental lists grew long, and my weary soul just chided – let me stay awake in this quiet and breathe it in, let me soak it long and deep because tomorrow will be madness again and let me just not miss this sound of silence, tonight.

And so, I listened and I read and I listened more.  And no earth-shattering truth rained down, and no audible God-words split the ceiling, no epiphanies were had, but for the quiet beauty of necessary solitude when my spirit was so very saturated with the weariness of all this busy.

Tonight, I’m doubly tired after the restless night and a too-full day and the inexplicable exhaustion that comes from the combination of scorching sunshine and pool water.  And while I fear another bout of insomniatic clock-watching, I welcome the remaining evening hours to pass in anticipation of that blissful moment when I can climb in bed and melt into mattress and eat up the dark for all the blankness it can give. 

Sometimes, when God says nothing but silence, it’s the most beautiful of all gifts.

The count continues, numberless again until I catch up in hard copy, but counting nonetheless with Ann… the gifts.

-          The endurance I’ve needed to get to the end of these days without crumpling in defeat.

-          Husband getting to go on a last-minute trip that means the world to him. 

-          Being asked to be a small part of a big publishing project.

-          Another writing opportunity that challenges my self-doubt in wonderful {scary} ways.

-          A few days ahead with several quiet hours set aside in each.

-          A bedroom redecorating project – investing precious time into a place of serenity for Husband and myself, and looking very much forward to this.

-          A new baby and an overjoyed grandma.

-          A peace that is wriggling into and covering delicately my anxieties about the future, a looser self-grip on what’s to come.

-          Soul-bearing talk with Big C about a girl, the state of his adolescent heart, and love in general… and that he didn’t think me too old or un-cool to ask for advice.

-          Shade and the trees that provide it.

-          A hundred various forms of freedom that I encounter mostly without noticing.

-          Gratitude, expressed genuinely.

-          Respite.

-          J cooking dinner for the whole household last night, and the boys that look out for Mom while Pop’s away.

-          Emptiness and blankness and understanding for the first time why they’re sometimes necessary.

-          Silence, blessed silence.