Quiet.

I've been thinking about quiet, maybe because I'm kind of hungering for it. Once you get a taste of quiet, as we did in Idaho, if you truly need it, it's hard to live with noise, real or metaphorical.

Today, I worked from home, which constituted a long spell of no noise. I made a quiet breakfast. I worked in my Canvas course and responded to emails from students and colleagues (a kind of noise, let's be honest), but I also revised a poem and worked some more on a new poem. I graded (much less noisy than emails). I added some notes to a document that's a precursor to my promotion file.

Milky Way Silhouette, by Ben Coffman. Part of a series of astrophotography
taken in places with clear skies and no light pollution. From Twisted Sifter.

I took a short break to close my eyes. I could hear the fan whirring overhead, and the speed of cars far away.

By Alex Scott. Part of a series of photographs of L.A. freeways
when there are no cars, typically between 2 and 6 a.m. Also from
Twisted Sifter.

I heard my son come in. After a minute, I got up to go talk to him. He had a box of doughnuts. He and his friend had driven to the nearest Krispy Kreme. He set two on a plate, one for me and one for the historian, and after a brief mom-quiz about what the plan was, the plan being both big and small, he was off.

That's what it is: even as you long for quiet, there's still the coming and the going, the surge and ebb of beloved people and the work of the world, and here and there a little moment to pay attention to stillness.