Be quiet. Listen.

My boy’s words as we took a short break on our hike yesterday.

What did we hear? Quiet. No sound of machine, car, people, pipes, notifications…just silence.

What a gift to hear only the whisper of wind blowing through trees with leaves hanging on by a thread, waiting for spring to shove them off in favor of the new. The gift of hearing other leaves blowing on the ground, ready to become soil that would grow a new wave of forest.

My boy is one restored by nature and the outdoors and silence in ways others in our family have yet to discover or just aren’t. The other boy is one on the hunt, overturning any rock he can in search of salamanders. Then he looks them up in his classification book astounded over finding one here that only exists…here.

Always ready to go…unless he’s not.

But the quiet one, the one of few words, when he speaks it often gets missed to his frustration. He wants to speak only what needs saying and only once and be…heard. And, sadly, we are a rowdy bunch and often miss what he’s trying to tell us, trying to say. He’s forced to repeat what he wanted to only have to say once, or not at all.

I think he wants us all to learn to read his mind and is disappointed we won’t…not wanting to accept we can’t.

So when he insists we be quiet, that we listen, this time we hear, my husband and I and we do what he says. We fall silent and listen with him and watch as the peace comes over him in a calm place with glorious views. Away from the pressure of AP classes and high school shenanigans he was never young enough in soul to truly enjoy.

A long time ago a mentor advised that I needed to slow down and accept that our family pace needed to include all…even the ones I most wanted to hurry up because they seem to slow. Maybe their pace was God’s gift to me, to us all, and waiting for them was God’s intended way forward for us.

That was at least 10 years ago…

I am not always good at this but over time, I am learning and accepting and seeing that bending to the whole is truly God’s gift to me.

It looks like family vacations where being outside hiking and exploring needs to be central so we all are restored. My intensity, though I’d like to think I’m laid back, is moderated by one foot in front of the other. I am restored as well as I keep a steady pace, putting one foot in front of another…

And another and another.

Pausing to wait for the youngest while another rock is lifted in search of another salamander.

Enjoying the constant, watchful presence of my middle son, an experienced hiker, looking after me, the inexperienced hiker, quietly accompanying me one foot after another. Saying little and much all at the same time.

Enjoying the slow stillness of the outdoors.

What have you learned about yourself and your family on vacations?