The Silence That Speaks
Peace
For as long as I can remember, words have been my best friend. I talked in writing, I talked to the animals I always brought home, to the dolls and imaginary characters from childhood games to my Guardian Angel and the star that shone in the dark of night, showing me that someone up there loved me. I was chatty as a flock of sparrows when I had the company of adults (I always found the adult world more interesting than that of children my age) and communicated with all possible signs when I had to be silent, the most severe punishment for the lively child I was.
On the journey to the adult world, I spoke, not as freely and restlessly as in childhood, but I often said what seemed unjust or incomprehensible to me, provoking reproaches, sometimes even the revolt of those around me against my attitude. I didn’t understand then why a truth spoken directly and simply, as truth always is, could provoke such unexpected reactions for the young idealist I was in those years. It hurt me a lot that I was asked to close my eyes and pretend to see what others were trying to show me, without much success, by transforming reality into illusion. I was saddened by the mask I felt sticking to my face, but I didn’t have the courage and strength to remove it. My desire to see the truth and offer it to everyone with the naturalness of calling things by their name began to fade, giving way to a silent defeat.
Gradually, almost imperceptibly, the cheerful chatter of words that tumbled playfully turned into outbursts of words thrown with the bitterness and fury of the inability to be myself anymore. Over the years, the world’s weariness, which crushed, dream after dream, the desires of a teenager and the hopes of a woman at the beginning of her journey, took over my entire being, taking away the joy of the words that had illuminated my childhood days.
A grave and heavy silence set in, sometimes painful, in which imprisoned words burst forth, hitting the limits of a mind that no longer wanted to communicate with a world that had disappointed it so deeply. Almost irreparably… I had nothing more to say, no one to talk to, no reason to communicate. All I wanted was peace.
A peace that silence could not offer me. A peace of being. Of the mind that still argued its rightness, of the soul bleeding in the loneliness of the silence’s prison, of a body tormented by unseen struggles. Then I understood that silence without peace is a merciless prison, which I condemned myself, hoping it would be less painful than the suffocating masks and illusions of a false world.
After years and years of words sometimes spoken, sometimes unspoken, after outbursts and silences, through tears and smiles, the allied word befriended silence, taming it. After so many battles, which I thought were lost, came the time of the white flag, of humble peace, counting the lost parts of the soul over the vast stretch of years, searching for every precious fragment of life. The war is not over yet; I carry it with me as long as I walk on the damp ground of my existence. However, battle by battle, I learned not to sharpen words like in my youth, not to turn them into spears and sharp lances or swords whose blades caused deep wounds, bringing death to relationships with loved ones.
Day by day, I choose which words to keep in the sheath of saving silence and which words to give the gentle power of a peace envoy. Moment by moment, in silence or choosing the path of communication, peace is part of my life, vital like the air drawn eagerly into the chest. Peace is the life of a soul at peace. And only then does peace take shape, transforming into everything the words or silences of the past could not be. Only then, whether silent or speaking, the peace brought by the mind and soul’s calm envelops us all together until we become one, the words being superfluous for the same heart that beats in all of us.
“When you can say something useful, do it then! Learning from compulsion is not meant to stay, but that which penetrates the soul through love and goodwill remains there forever.” Saint John Chrysostom
