When I'm Still...

What in your life is calling you? When all the noise is silenced, the meetings adjourned, the lists laid aside, and the wild iris blooms by itself in the dark forest, what still pulls on your soul? In the silence between your heartbeats hides a summons, do you hear it? Name it, if you must, or leave it forever nameless, but why pretend it is not there?” — The Terma Collective

It's quiet time.  The time of morning when everyone has left.  It's just me, this laptop, a cup of coffee and three snoozing dogs.  

It's so quiet in here that the humming sounds of this computer and of the refrigerator in the kitchen seem loud and the tick-tocking of the two clocks on opposite walls of this room are even louder.  

I close my eyes and I begin to hear the deep sleeping breaths of Brisco "Big Boy" Darling the Dachshund who is lying on the back of this leather couch I'm sitting on, just over my left shoulder. 

Now I hear Lucky the Lemon Beagle's breaths as he dozes on the loveseat to my right.  

Charlene "Li'l Bit" Darling the Dachshund is snuggled up next to my left leg on my fuzzy white throw blanket (my left arm rests lightly against her soft fur) but her breath is so small and quiet, it doesn't make a sound...

I reach over to rub her ears and she quietly grunts a tiny sigh of contentment.  

And my heart smiles.

I love the sound the keys make when my fingers begin to type, hating when they pause too long as a result of my darting mind that struggles to focus on the subject at hand. 

They've been pausing that way a lot lately.  Or never starting at all.  And this frustrates me more than I know how to put into words...

Now I'm recalling a song...What's that song?  

Ahh, yes... Breathe by Anna Nalick.  Thank you, Google....

If I get it all down on paper, it's no longer inside of me,
Threatening the life it belongs to
And I feel like I'm naked in front of the crowd
Cause these words are my diary, screaming out loud
And I know that you'll use them, however you want to

I've felt that way many times in my life but never so powerfully as I did several years ago when I wrote a poem entitled, The Young Widow.  

It was a weekday evening and I was struggling.  Really struggling.  The boys, still very little then, were giving me a hard time.  A really hard time.  I was trying to get them bathed and ready for bed.  

There was the usual resistance and stubbornness that I've long since grown accustomed to and that my two strong-willed children have always been notorious for dishing out but this particular night they were being exceptionally difficult.

I can't remember all the details but I was about at my wit's end. 

Then these words just suddenly began stringing themselves together in my head and I had to get them out, down on paper.  HAD to.  They wanted to be written right that moment and would not take No for an answer.  

So I grabbed something (I don't even remember what) and began frantically scribbling these words down while simultaneously struggling to tame the chaos the boys were creating.

Tears were pouring down my cheeks and literally splashing onto the paper in my lap.  I'd quickly wipe them away (so the boys wouldn't see them) and run to put out another fire before grabbing the pen again. 

When that poem was finally complete, I could breathe deeply again.  The tears subsided (for that moment anyway) and I could actually breathe as that sick, empty hole in the center of me began to ease up, feeling a little less empty, and that extremely heavy, invisible boulder had temporarily been lifted from my shoulders.

And that's when I realized that I was really in love...with writing.   

It was my therapy, the one that soothed my grieving soul, and I knew that it would always be there for me if I really listened closely to the words my soul was quietly shouting.

Sometimes the words won't come and sometimes I feel like an impostor to even fathom the ridiculous notion that I am a writer. But I think I am finally beginning to recognize myself as such.  

No, I'm not published. I'm not getting paid to write, not working on a book or even an article and I may never even be one of the best bloggers on the block and that is all okay. Because in my heart I am a writer and writing is still what my soul loves and longs to do, especially when all the noise has been silenced...

*This post was inspired by  Mama Kat's Writer's Workshop, prompt 2.) Listen to the sounds in your house for 5 or 10 minutes. Write about what you hear. (inspired by The Aums)