Yellow Sky
The sky turned yellow last night, and we watched the
weather hour by hour, thunderstorms and tornados passing
just south of us. We’re sleeping hard these nights, feverish
all four of us, tossing and turning, sweating through sheets,
kids yelping and crying out from vivid dreams. The days
start a little too early, all four of us stumbling toward coffee
and breakfast, clean clothes and where are my shoes? And
then as wild and chaotic as the morning is, just as swiftly,
they are gone, and the house is silent, and I become a writer:
coffee, candle, laptop.
I’ve always thought of myself as a city girl. I love the
energy, the diversity, the noise. I love the variety of
experiences, the speed and volume, the endless chatter and
din of traffic, the endless options and adventures.
But as I learn to dwell in the silence of my own heart,
I’m finding myself drawn to the silence of nature—of water,
land, expanse. As I learn to trust the stillness I’ve been
running from for so long, I’m finding that I crave more and
more silence. I’m drawn back to the water, to the sound of
the waves instead of the sounds of traffic and the blare of
action and excitement.
Yesterday I sat with my spiritual director. Her name is