on silence and patience

The weekend was filled with that quiet kind of puttering that comes about when one is trying to transform a house into a home during the coldest months of the year. When I am home alone, I have taken to puttering in silence, leaving the music off, for I can't quite seem to find the right sounds and songs to listen to just now. 

We used to hear our apartment neighbors and the sounds from the busy street outside. The incessant plinking of the crosswalk, urging pedestrians to "Wait." The noise of chatter in the hallway as smokers headed to the icy fire escape to take deep drags from their cigarettes. Sirens. Wind. The rumbling of the coin laundry thumping against the wall in the closet down the hall.

Now, these empty walls keep the silence within, and the quiet forms a soft pocket of echoes as the flakes of freezing air drift about outside.

I'm striving not to rush into homemaking. Not to make hasty decisions about wall paint or curtains. Patience. Patience in painting. Patience in decorating. Patience in waiting till spring to attack the bushes encroaching on the front window and blocking the clear winter sunlight.

I read this piece on writing and memory this morning during my silent cuppa tea. If you are in as reflective a mood as I am, you may want to take a look and wander through this authors thoughts on joy. 

She writes, "I’m reminded of my own process of remembering, of writing. Of reaching down into my gut to access my most slippery memories — the faceless and complex ones, and as time passes, the ones that remain the most dear to me."

We write carefully. We remember carefully.

I think that we must fill this new space carefully as well.