I discovered something this moderately cold November day.
School got out an hour early because our volleyball team achieved the hefty goal of making it to state. All students got out an hour early in order to support our volleyball team. I wasn’t feeling socially up to that task and instead went to a tea store downtown. I picked my tea which was called cloud 9, I was drawn by the name not the actual flavor. Then I drove.
After about an hour I arrived at a place called raccoon river and started to walk. Raccoon river is a huge encampment of sand banks as well as trees and grass mixed in with a playground or two. Considering that it was three oclock on a Wednesday afternoon, I was the only human within a five mile radius of the park. So I walked. And it was amazing. I was shocked by how vastly surrounded I was by this beautiful nature. The trees stood naked, already having lost their leaves. The river sat silent without a ripple, without disturbance unless you counted the geese floating on the water. I walked along the sand bank and thought about things. I looked around and thought about nature and how alone I was in this huge venue that was raccoon river. Something felt eerie about the whole thing, and then it hit me; the silence. Here I was, walking along a sand bank around a vast river, surrounded by thousands of trees and grass and it was silent. All I could here was the wind blowing and every once in a while a goose. At first it was unnerving, but then it turned into amazing. I just sat there and looked out into the water and thought and listened. This silence, complete and utter silence, spoke to me louder than the drowning noise that presents itself in everyday life ever could.