On Silence …
As the days dogs bark seemingly without ceasing in the background, I write about silence. Here I have given up much of my precious silence. My room is not my own. The house is shared by eleven people: eight to one bathroom in the upstairs apartment, three to the bathroom in the downstairs apartment. Loud birds, gas generators, barking dogs, horns, people singing, talking, sweeping … there is always something waiting to steal the still moment I longingly await. The cloud of sound that surrounds everything wears down my nerves. I struggle to find peace – to process all that I see and hear, to remind (and sometimes convince) myself that I am still sane, I am love, I have worth. There are no coffee shops, no empty, quiet houses where I can escape. The color of my skin and the celebrity it provides does not allow me to find the silence that anonymity could provide. The brief moments that do come when the cloud cover breaks briefly or when I lose myself in my thoughts are sweet and cherished. Finding extended moments of escape is one of the challenges of my time here.
Even as I seek moments to be lost in silence that is mine to break, I am thankful for the silence from my routine back in the US – a silence brought about by the absence of the familiar. While I deeply miss friendships and family, the silence afforded me by my forfeiture of my routine allows me to start anew, to see what is really me and shows up here in Sierra Leone, and what is not and is left back in the states. This experience is a filter of sorts, leaving behind the things that are hindrances behind to create a silence to sift out what remains. Sadly, it also catches some things that mean so much, like family & friends.
So here I sit, seeking a literal silence to process the figurative along with all the lessons of the day.