The Adventurer

I couldn’t hear him anymore. He’d been flying up and down the driveway on his bike, playing-cards rattling in the spokes, rolling in a raucous riot like some sort of rebel rider. And now all was quiet.

It had been for some time, I realized. Somehow, some sort of preposterous presence of noise can send me into the space of silence — where everything sounds a whole lot like nothing. And then I emerge from the coma, a little punch-drunk and hungover, and consider how long I’ve been away.

I stood up, walked out the side door, and stepped into the driveway.

I made my way to the trash cans, the garage, the minivan, the grill, the little patch of green grass in the back. And our little pop-up kid-size tent. And there he was, lost in his own little world.

Cars and trucks and dirt and dust — imagination in action. I wanted to enter in. To become part of the story and make whiiiirrrrrrrrrrrs and wheeeeees and tackle and tickle until he almost fell apart. Crumbling into some boneless bag of boyish delight in the arms of his dad.

But I didn’t.

Something about it felt too sacred.

The sweet, little silence. That still, small smirk.

I tiptoed gently away, like the hunter who found the prey far too magnificent. So great in glory the only right response was appreciation and awe. Wonder in the face of wonder.

I walked back inside. Shut the side door. Cradled back up in the chair. Sun speaking, wind falling through the open window. And all was quiet.