Symphony of Silence

Everyone has a quiet place. My wonderful wife, Laurie, simply walks out into her yard and blends with the flora. When her toes touch the grass and her slender fingers dig into the rich, dark soil, she finds peace. From her touch, flowers bloom and plants spring forth. Priscilla, on the other hand, slips away to an empty trailer near her reservation home which her daughter vacated awhile back. On the rare occasion when she slows, albeit briefly, Priscilla sits on the windswept, sandblasted porch and experiences her world visually. Whether it be a magnificent sunrise or colorfully refracted sunset over her red-desert homeland, she finds harmony just sitting, wondering, and watching.

Steve finds balance through exercise, whether it be with his new walk/run routine or biking along the highways and byways in and around Bluff. His legs and heart pumping away, the bicycle clicking and grinding forward across the blistered and cracked asphalt. Because he is the outspoken and controversial personality in this business partnership, I am constantly amazed that someone with opposing opinions has not yet sideswiped and sent him and his bicycle careening across sand and sage.

Recently, I spoke with Elsie Holiday about her quiet place. According to Elsie, her time of peace and quiet begins when everyone else in her household goes down and out for the night. When they retire she returns to her weaving, picking up her basket and awl and settling into the creative process. Elsie says that when she focuses on her work, she becomes lost in the process and loses all track of time. “Oftentimes,” says Elsie, “the rising sun glaring through my living room window interrupts my work and causes me to realize I have been working all night.” When asked if she is exhausted by the work, she shakes her head from side to side. “Just the opposite,” she said, “I feel revived and invigorated.”

My quiet place is the mountain. I am crazy about discovering high, lonely ridge lines and sitting there to enjoy the symphony of silence. To rest upon the flank of a peak and look out across the vast distance makes me happy. I must have sprung forth from a gushing spring, or popped out of a pine cone, because I am incessantly drawn to the highlands.

The other day I was rousting about the mountain and stepped into a circle of tall, sturdy timber. The topiary towered above me with their heavily textured grey bark, flecked with yellow lichen, and topped with leafy, emerald greenery. The oak trees seemed to embrace each other in fortress-like fashion, their intermingled and intertwined branches attempting to bar intrusion. The sun dappled meadow within was kidney-shaped, somewhere near 100 feet long and 50 feet across. The dark mountain soil within was covered in tall, wispy shoots of golden grass and the stalky remnants of columbine.

I took in this quaintly magical court of honor and heard the shrill cry of blue birds, the tweet of sparrows, and the pounding of a flicker on a nearby quaking aspen. A tufted Abert’s squirrel barked at me from the crotch of one of the trees. The breeze blew through the slender stalks of grass, causing them to sway in a mesmerizing manner. The long, dead stalks of columbine bumped and rattled against each other producing a woodsy wind-chime effect. I sat in silence, absorbing the sunlight and letting the sight and sound of the place enchant me.

If I could talk Laurie into coming along, and our children into visiting on occasion, I believe that I could easily become the old man of the mountain. Laurie will come and stay the night, on occasion, and enjoys the wildlife. The deer, turkey, and squirrels are her friends, but she is leery of the coyotes and bears. She appreciates the peace and quiet of the mountain, but her yard is her sanctuary. 

The thing that really quashes my fantasy is that Laurie is not fond of the title “Old Woman of the Mountain.”