Dark Night of the Soul

It's always quiet in Nebraska, where I spent my childhood. There just isn't a lot going on, unless the crickets are out and about in the summertime screeching and breeding like pigs. And then this is simply not sleeping weather. But most of the time in the quiet, in the dark, you can lie completely immobilized and the silence is almost physical.

Until I was seven years old I was an only child. I hated being alone. Sometimes I'd be lying in bed and the silence of being in the middle of nowhere crept up on me like a drum. Stricken and remote: here you are in the great, great wide world. And however violently my heart batted, God was as distant as he was huge outside my small, tiny room. Miles and miles of sky topped miles and miles of people doing miles upon miles of things while I lamely lay and beat, and beat, and beat.

I think back on this and wonder if true religiousness is only possible with children. I had real FEAR, then. In the biblical sense.

In later life, I've found cities comforting. Someone is always outside, laughing and kicking a can. In the subway and 4 o'clock in the morning there are always people going God knows where, just like you. In the apartment next to yours, someone is shouting at a dog. Stillness, however, requires a stiff upper lip.

I am finally in my semi-permanent lodging in Berlin. It's a quiet neighborhood. The stillness is graphic.