The quiet inside

A short story

She was sitting in the attic room on the third floor of her house. It had slanted ceilings, exposed beams and two frost-bitten windows at either end, letting in streaks of late-January sunlight through their dusty panes. Her small cushions were piled up high enough so that she could sit comfortably. Fifty-plus years of seated meditation, two childbirths, and one knee replacement required a nuanced arrangement of hard and soft pillows under her hips, legs and feet, which she carefully crafted each morning like a potter at her wheel. She liked to go up to the attic early to greet the sun and to pray for the quiet, before the noise of the day came to fill the house.

In her early years she meditated with fervor, diving into the recesses of her mind, filled with its enlivening thoughts and passionate lessons. She investigated and mapped it with anticipation and excitement like a sea-faring explorer in uncharted lands. Piles of books were her favorite décor, mountains of primary, secondary, and tertiary sources, sacred texts from around the world and hand-written copies of her favorite scriptures. Whenever she discovered a new teacher she’d take cars, buses and trains to get to the front row of their talks and she never shied from asking a burning question. This mind—so full of mysteries—this heart, so full of pain—were her beloved playthings, so much so that she rarely felt lonely as the years of her youth passed by.

Through her curiosity and enthusiasm, she made her way, slowly, and with great determination, toward the quiet place inside of herself. Eventually, she felt as though she’d read enough of the important books and the teachers started to sound similar each time she heard them speak. She spent more time alone and would dwell for longer and longer by herself in the quiet place, enjoying its stillness and spaciousness. The teachings and texts faded into the recesses of her mind and her heart became sensitive to the world around her in new ways. Sometimes she felt different from other people, yet she was beginning to see them with more clarity, less resistance.

After a few years she realized that she rarely went to the dharma center anymore. She’d pick up dense texts, read a few lines, and then put them up on the shelf again. The quiet became more distant, drowned out by the sounds of ordinary life. Yet it always lingered in the back of her thoughts even when she was busy working, talking with friends, having sex, making her grocery list, or watching TV. Finally, after they’d bought the house, big enough for their young family, she set up the attic. Her quiet place to return to the quiet inside.

Then, as the kids grew, her job receded, and her days turned into ever-shrinking years, the quiet began to pervade her mind. By the time the man who had walked beside her for years got sick, and the living room was rearranged to make room for a hospital bed, commode and oxygen tanks, the house had begun to mimic the quiet inside of her. The angle of the sunlight became the quiet clock, the patter of her feet in the kitchen, the shower, and the creaky bedroom became the quiet music of their lives and the hand holding, feeding and changing of his clothes became the quiet art of making love.

After he died and the kids were busy with their own children to raise, the quiet became her companion. As the seasons turned and the leaves glistened gold and bronze outside her window, she recognized them and her heart smiled. As her grandchildren ran and laughed and cried, she held them and she saw their whole lives radiating from their eyes. As memories came and filled streaked her cheeks with tears, she cried them and tended to her grief. New things came into her life, and she knew them as new. Old things, she knew as old and familiar. All the while she was quiet on the inside.

She covered up her legs with a thick wool blanket because the windowpanes leaked the cold winter air. The tree outside the window was bare now, exposing the twists and turns of its branches and its cracked, greying bark. As she looked softly out onto the rising sun, she smiled at its beauty and asked again for the quiet of the world to hold her, and as she always did, the earth recognized her as a friend and smiled back.