low-lying clouds and the beautiful impermanence of twilight.

I’ve never, in all my life, felt as quiet as I do now. Maybe this is how traveling hushes your heart, or solitude quiets your words… I’ve always felt like I listen in between communicating in some outward way, but now it seems reversed, like I communicate in small bits in between large stretches of listening. It’s like the universe has quieted me deeply, and this is simply my time to listen, to everything, in every way. It’s almost been a challenge to communicate in any outward way, verbally, visually… Like my thoughts are grounded so deeply in my heart and mind, I can’t even get them out. Sometimes I feel like I’m swallowed in a low-lying cloud.

I wonder if, when my time here is over, I’ll really have something to say, in a way I didn’t know how to before.

Some of the most blissful and alive moments I’ve had in my time here, have been when I allow myself to get lost on twisting rural roads. They always take me exactly where I need to be, and see exactly what I need to see, be it a herd of deer at twilight, a farm with old red buildings up on a hill, a dog running along side me, horses with their winter shag poking their heads out of the fences, a tree with twisting, knotted fingers… Sometimes I will just drive and drive, always winding further into the beautiful unknown, and suddenly I will find myself in a clearing on top of a mountain, with the beautiful snow covered Green Mountain’s peaks in view and not a trace of humans in sight. I am working the morning shift this month, so I’m done with the workday at 5. This translates to me driving toward home when the workday is done, but before tiredly finding my way home, I find a new dirt road to get lost on. I drive and watch twilight descend and bleed into nighttime… and I think this is when I feel the most alive… Twilight has a way of reminding me of the painful, bittersweet beauty of impermanence. It reminds me of the natural flow of all things and of my own impermanence… my own twilight. I always hear this voice in my heart cry out to the twilight, ‘Stay. Just a little longer. Stay this moment. Stay this milky blue. Stay this day. Stay.’ But it won’t. And that is beautiful.