When The Quiet Comes
It's important to let the silence hit you - especially in a culture that praises loudness, bells and whistles and bright lights.
In 2006, I ventured into the deep desert with my old friends Matt and Mitch. We went to rural Arizona on a three hour hike from the top of a canyon into the deepest, darkest badlands I've ever seen. When we finally hit the tiny town under a blanket of pitch, we were greeted by unfriendly dogs that ran from farm home houses to bark their lungs out at us. We fumbled for flashlights and we were tired and blistered. We asked scurrying locals how to find our campsite.
Coyotes howled. I even had the thought that I would die in a tiny Arizona town, at the age of 30, and that life would be all over.
Eventually, we made it to a roadside, pitched a tent off a horse path, and one of the most beautiful, sandy silences befell all of us in our tent. Through the screen roof, I saw some of the brightest and richest stars I've ever seen.
Sometimes, the stillness teaches you how to let everything go.
