Quiet

 I forget how restorative quiet is.  Perhaps because I get so little of it that hurts to remember.  Thanks to Covid, I've had almost none since late December.  

But now, for the first time in aeons, the house has been drained of shrieking and clomping and clacking and whining and running and weeping and incessant organ music and unnecessarily loud telephone conversations and arguments over turning off the organ music and Baby Shark.  And what rushes to fill the space is sunlight and dust and– not silence, but the relief of small, discreet, noises.  

The HVAC system heaving to life; the ice maker's click; the cat extending one paw.  Outside, a bird or two.  The snow is beginning to slide off the eaves and I hear, for the first time in a long time, my breath.

It feels like floating.  Like swimming in syrup.  Like love.