A moment for day 28

This is actually written the morning of day 29, but I needed to share a small moment of joy from the night of day 28. Here goes…

I don’t think I have ever heard the “hoot” of an owl before. If I have, I wasn’t really listening. The sounds of an owl are both the vibrations through the air and the absence of them. The sounds of an owl is just as much the guttural cries as it is the hurried silence. The silence is where your ears lose track of location, your skin starts to hope for a breeze, and your heart starts to believe there may have never been an owl at all. Sitting in the silence feels like falling through clouds. There is no up or down, no past or future, no sky above or ground below. The silence feels endless, agonizing over never-ending time. Then, your breath hitches on a moment. As the sound of air propelling wings upwards breaks what felt unbreakable, time stops. The sound we are comfortable with returns as it takes its perch once more atop a branch you will never see. The hoots of conversations with the night fill the darkness that was never empty. The sounds of the owl turn into sustenance, into the earth turning imperceptibly, into the world acting and reacting as it always has and always will. The sounds of the owl are the reassurance that you are in the right place, at the right time. The hoots and the hushes are the ebb and flow of life that you will gladly sway back and forth in until the moonlight lulls you to sleep.