All I Hear is the Silence

What do you think about when you wake up at night and it's so quiet?

All I hear is the silence and feel the peace. My thoughts come and go like tuning in a radio.

God's presence feels palpable when everyone sleeps and life energy drops to a low hum.

Sometimes I wish I could be awake to enjoy twilight more often. It's as though all the secrets of the world wait to be unlocked by the ones who stay up late pondering them.

I used to paint into the night listening to instrumental jazz. At that time, my second floor studio overlooked a parking lot guarded by a live oak hung with yards of spanish moss. I worked uninterupted from 11:00 p.m. until three a.m.

I'd change down the lights, have a glass of wine in a room illuminated by white twinkle lights. I'd stand at the window, winding down with my glass on the sill.

When I looked toward the north east, I'd see the lights of Jacksonville on the horizon. The air was full of promise, and I believed that anything was possible. My life could turn on a dime and change completely.

It still could.

Sometimes when I see people I haven't seen for a long time they'd say,

"Are you famous yet?" I always wondered where my life would lead, what it was people saw in me that wasn't in everyone else.

I still wonder.