Silence

I didn't speak until 7pm the other day. It reminded me, for a time, I wanted to be a monk.

The summer after college I used my graduation money to visit my then girlfriend in Vermont. She was working in a summer stock box office and was behind a desk during the day. I was at loose ends most of the visit and had to find things to occupy my time, difficult to do in rural Vermont.

One day I packed a lunch and just started walking down the highway. I was hoping for trails and deep woods but it was mostly rolling hills, small mountains, blacktop, and lots of cottages. After a while I came upon a sign. Monastery this way. I followed it up. and up. and up. On the top of a squat mountain I found a cloister of benedictine monks.

I stayed there for most of the day. Lounging in the shade, reading in the sun, walking the grounds, exchanging nods with monks involved in various tasks. No one spoke. It was calming. Seemed simple. And appealing. At the time my life was relatively tumultuous and desperate. I lived most days with an unshakable dread and/or an unreasonable rage. The idea of taking a vow of silence for a week, a month, a year, the idea of bowing out of normal life, was desirable. The monastery and the monks represented a safety and peace I wouldn't know for years.

I came back to Chicago after the trip. My girlfriend did shortly after. Slowly and surely my life started to fall apart for the first time. But I never forgot those monks.

Quietly gardening, conducting prayers, tending orchards, thinking the long thoughts of summer.