Everybody Talks
Life is so damn loud.
This is an observation I arrived at while sitting outside one evening on my back porch in the dead center of the suburbs.
Suburbs. A term that I, since learning it, have associated with nothingness. A place that I worked full speed to escape as not to become trapped by its temptations of comfort, simplicity, and mediocrity.
So, I spent every moment living there plotting my getaway. Fantasizing about what possibly lay on the “other side”; whatever my young brain imagined that to look like — probably something like fancy people in nice-looking clothes, holding bags, and walking around like they've got someplace important to be, something impactful to do, and time-stopping to say.
And I did it. The country mouse moved to the big city where city mice don't stop for anything, not even a breath. They scurry to each destination with only themselves in mind, make city mouse friends who they pretend to love and drink their sorrows away with, and hold big bags filled with god-knows-what to go god-knows-where to meet god-knows who.
The city is loud and alive. I hear it breathing and I can feel its heart about to burst at just about any moment. I can feel it moving, spinning me until I'm too dizzied up to even fathom what the hell is going on.
But now I'm back in the burbs. Sitting outside on my back porch on a cool evening — no cars, no traffic, no nothing; it is quite literally just me, the trees, and the lone chair on which I sit.
And the universe is practically shouting at me.
The trees are whispering amongst themselves, the birds singing hymns, the dogs speak in barks and whimpers. The pavement and the steps that quietly trot against it engage in discourse, the bike wheels whirr, the clouds and the colors in the sky tell a short love story, and so does the basketball hoop.
Everyone is just talking, no one requesting nor granting permission. Just speaking their truths in various tongues, all foreign to me and foreign to one another, yet each is still heard and more importantly, understood.
Everybody speaks, everything speaks.
Most of us just can't shut up long enough to hear, see, or feel all that is happening all around us.
I imagine this strange force to be God using the world around us to send a message when He's sick and tired of us not picking up His calls.
God speaks to us;
in strange tongues of lawn mowers and butterfly wings.
