a quiet walk

hello. in my town, in newburyport massachusetts, many of the streets are very narrow. so much so that the town enforces a parking ban when it snows, so that plows can clear the streets. i currently live in a house that does not have off street parking, so i park my car in a municipal lot and walk home. 

tonight, i got home late, around 1045. it was still snowing. the roads were more clear than the sidewalks so i started off down the middle of the street. there were no cars in sight. my only company was the thin layer of slush, a clouded sky lit orange by street lamps, and 200 year old buildings that have stared down upon people like me for well, 200 years. staring at people walking late at night in the snow on their way home.

i've written about quiet, and about thought. it isn't earth-shattering. more so than ever, solitary moments for me have made silence more deafening. tonight it was quiet, but the ambient sound of tires on slush from miles away, or the soft melting of snow that has been on the ground for weeks gave the silence form and shape. the silence was loud. 

that is the way it has been for me. the silence that we have for ourselves, the conversations and memories and problems and dreams we have in our brains make a lot of noise. combine all of that with the constant soundtrack i have going, and it is pretty fucking loud. 

i hear it, but i need to listen.

ok.