silence

The overactive brain rouses me between 1 and 2AM — or several hours before I want to be up for the day. The downside is feeling less than the best version of myself as the day wears on. But the upside is all those hours of solitude and quiet. First I battle, determined to fall back asleep. Then I relent, leave the warm bed, and follow my restless thoughts wherever they take me.

The quiet stillness of the wee pre-dawn and nothingness begin to quiet my thoughts. I am a silence seeker. I stop at the top of the ridge after a long ascent, gentle but steady noise of boots crunching in snow and heavy breathing. I still my pace and wait. Up here I am nothing more than something for cold breezes to bump up against on the way to wherever breezes are going.

Up here the wind wins, bending grasses toward earth, their paintbrush tufts drawing half circles on the snow. Seed pods are scattered everywhere, collecting in turkey tracks and deer divots — passive passengers at the mercy of the wind’s whim. Summer spent burdocks seem to have given up, their necks snapped, burrs waiting now for some passerby to latch onto.

Between the stark and naked trees the mountains glow pink in the weak sun, a yellow and blue horizon here, the suggestion of a moon there. A coyote descends from the ridge, his large tracks crossing my path, the back foot landing squarely in the track of the front — a practice reflecting more energy efficiency than grace or art, but it strikes me as a comment on nature’s perfection.