This is what he wrote:
“Not till we are lost, in other words, not till we have lost the world, do we begin to find ourselves, and realize where we are and the infinite extent of our relations.” — Henry David Thoreau
I am lost.
It doesn’t feel bad to be lost. In fact, it feels like something new is happening.
I have lived here for two full weeks. Two complete weeks of silence. And yet, silence has been a stranger. I am not lost enough.
My mind still chatters. It talks about the next sentence I plan to write. It talks about the grapes and apples in the icebox. It prods me to write more and write faster. My mind impels me to log onto chat rooms and type to strangers who become friends, and yet who remain strangers, for my relationship meter remains empty.
It’s a little bit exciting how quickly these online conversations can fly!
Empty.
Sometimes, when I become lost enough in the emptiness, silence becomes a friend. My mind stops. I fall together.
When the words stop, I feel peace.
The boundary between the plants and me dissolves. I run my hands over them and witness their evolution. Do they run their branches over me and witness mine?
Sometimes, it’s as if I see through the trunk and into the very coding that makes up the being of this tree.
I have lost the world. All that connects me is the thin line of my writing, the books that I have put out into the world.
Something is beginning to happen, inside of me.
As I develop the rational, logical part of my mind, I simultaneously feel that the rigid internal structure enforced by our culture is dissolving.
It is a process.
Something is breaking down.
I have not seen a tv in two weeks. The chatter of messages insisting that I need more, must be more, must do more, must shop more, has ceased. Soon, it will no longer be a memory.
Just as a computer program can be recoded, so can the coding within me be rewritten.
Something is breaking down, and it is the conditioning of culture.
I stand in an open door, looking out. When I step outside, which I have not yet begun to do, it will be as if I have stepped into a new world as a new me. I will no longer be female or male or young or old. I will be without label, without conditioning. I will be, simply, and utterly me, found, here, in myself, in my infinite relation to the universe.
I never knew silence could be so loud.
Stop in silence. What is there in you that has stopped? What is it that is silent?
