Excerpt-prose/essay from “Always Around”
[Nov 2011. Revised August 2022, Final Edit November 2023]
Silence, no matter its company good or bad, speaks great volumes. Its presence can mean violence, but so can the frantic nonstop expression of someone who is stuck in a void of misunderstanding and said violence. Either can mean a hurt soul. In the presence of the knowing company, silence is comfort, it is knowing. Words! Words in that company mean even more. When that anxious avoidance and attachment is broken across those boundaries of knowing, well…it’s an unstoppable force between the living. Something the dead of mind and nihilistic would know nothing about. Words, ahhhh…well how poetic it is that one can use words to describe how magical they can truly be. From the right people, the slightest recognition shows you they are listening, and you are seen. Like a sunrise on a dreary morning it can light your world.
Silence with those same people, or say even just one person, is a supportive company greater than much else in the whole God forsaken world. Silence, in good company, is Home. No matter where you are.
That knowing of shared values, education, experience, hurt, triumph, feelings, or even just liking the same silly things that make you smile- is so far undervalued it pains me some days to keep trying to find those who will recognize it. It’s not anything wild, it’s our instinct. Frightening, how far so many seem to be withdrawn from it, in favor of some fake version of progress or evolution that’s done nothing but drive everyone crazy, and distract them from what really matters in life. Safety and security in the darkest points of life is all any of us need-knowing we can trust even just one person with our vulnerability-if not many. I could always be wrong, but I think it’s truly the core of our humanity to love….or at least that’s true for some of us.
The silent understanding of a person without needing to explain, but instead discuss, learn from one another, grow together, and grow community from that- what else is there. When I find just this I may be able to let you know. Finding any company in which I would feel comfortable enough to just SHUT THE FUCK UP-and smile- in some sort of nodded understanding is so incredulously rare that I feel the need to share its rarity in words. It isn’t new to me, but something that seems to wane over time as people get comfortable, and decide they would rather live in that ignorant sense of uncaring, than recognize what was right next to them all along. I had almost forgotten what this sense of knowing truly felt like until I left the shores of the Stars and Stripes to seek some real humanity. I found that and now I’m grateful again to know it can ever exist.
Enjoy the Silence. (or Scream, depending on the circumstance.)
Always Around 🦇 