pauses are the most profound

I want to recognize that everyone's experience in this moment is different.

These musings come from my own experience as a college student.

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As soon as I got sent home from college and my work, I joked that if I didn’t come out of this lock down a famous author, something would be wrong. But every morning I wake up overwhelmed by the burden of simply being alive in a pandemic. Some days all I can do is stare at a wall, too tired to do anything but not tired enough to sleep. I started to realize that perhaps I wasn’t going to write the next great novel or even learn ten new songs on my dulcimer. But I still had high expectations for myself. I have more time than I’ve had since I started college, I have to take advantage of this moment, right?

I’ve always been obsessed with being aware of every moment. The Wednesday school shut down, I walked out of my last classroom with the thought, “This may be the last time I ever do this.” However, I’ve started to realize that my fear of missing something, of coming out of lock down with only fuzzy memories, distracts me from being present. Distracted by my frantic desire to preserve the memory of this experience, I lose my awareness of the fear I feel every morning when I check the news, or the joy found in a dandelion growing outside my apartment.

To be truly present means to stop and feel my feet on the ground. Madeleine L’Engle writes,

“Tallis says that the greatest music ever written is the silence between the Crucifixus and the Resurrexus est in Bach’s Mass in B minor. Yes; and I would add that some of the greatest writing mankind has ever produced comes in the caesura; the pause between words,”

(A Circle of Quiet).

This pandemic is our silence. It is our chance to rethink our lives. Often I hear conversations about how busy we are, and how our identities are formed by what we do. So it’s natural to want to keep doing even when the world stops. But what if we stopped doing? Stopped feeling guilty for what we can’t do.

Perhaps what I’m really afraid of isn’t missing this moment. Perhaps I am afraid of the silence. Of what I will feel when I turn off Netflix. Put down my to-do list. Stop thinking about what I should do tomorrow. And simply be in this moment. With all of its uncertainty, and loss, and small moments of hope. But the silence is the only thing that will bring me out of this with a different perspective.

I decided to go to a park today. So I packed my backpack full of books I knew I wouldn’t have time to read and set out. When I got there, I realized I wasn’t really experiencing nature, I was simply changing my location. So with some reluctance, I put down the book and simply sat on the moss under a tree still barren from winter frosts. Wind tousled my hair, pockets of warm sun hitting my arms. A sound of scratching came from the tree above me and I looked up into the eyes of an inquisitive red squirrel. When I got home, I opened my window and noticed for the first time after almost nine months of living in this apartment, that I could hear the whispering of pines through my window.

I know from experience that I can’t write about what’s happening around me until I am removed from the situation, but I also believe that in time, the silence will result in something beautiful. So maybe I’ll try to be a little quieter. Demand less of myself, knowing that it’s the pauses that are often the most profound.