y father is not a big talker. He doesn't make idle chit-chat. In fact, I'd say he only communicates what is necessary, and no more. This can lead to some amusingly abrupt phone conversations at times, but now that I'm grown up I feel like I understand him more, and have come to realize how much I take after him in a multitude of ways. I think I use more words in speech than he does (hey, that's not difficult), but a similar vein of silence runs through our generational gap.

More and more now, I seem to cultivate silence like a fine wine. That's why morning is my favorite time. M. is asleep with the dog, the cat lets out a few meows and purrs as I feed him breakfast, the coffee maker a sizzle or two. Other than that, a long and lovely silence stretches before me. I don't mind when it's broken later on by the activities of the day, but when it's on, it's on.

I'm getting my momentum back, here in my new life with a fiancé and a house that's daily becoming less strange and more ours. After morning prayer I set my timer for a few minutes and disappear into the silence. Sometimes it has a gentle motion to it, like how I'd imagine it feels to bound slowly across the moon in gravity boots. Sometimes I feel the singular quality of being alone with my God, though of course that's a sticky subject.

And silence has its own atmosphere when stretched from person to person, like when the whole ridiculousness of hurling through life with another catches up to you, which by the way, planning a marriage happens to exacerbate. There are many things M. and I can speak about and many that we can't. But sometimes you just have to shake your head and smile, and the silence conveys the unspoken.