THANKFUL FRIDAY

I am never prepared for the hours and hours of silence when I am in Woods Hole, MA. I have known for months that I was making this trip and I did a thing I most almost never do. I waited until the last minute to pack, to plan out my tasks in the lab space, plan my off hours time. So, on this trip, not only am I unprepared for the silence, but I am unprepared from the lack of planning. I feel like I have had vast amounts of time left unaccounted for, yet I spent a whole day and a half updating my inventory list for our lab space and taking care of some administrative details. I’ve shut down computers and unplugged equipment, made note of transmitted light bulbs to bring with me in the Spring. But I have moved along at a snail’s pace.

Maybe this is what I needed.

The North East coast is awash in color this time of year. There is a constant cold wind blowing in off the Atlantic and though the sun is blinding, it is cold. The joke is that I have never been here when it is warm. I am always visiting when the leaves are changing or when the Rhododendrons are blooming. I am always visiting when the area is in full techno color vision. It is slightly discombobulating, the juxtaposition of bright, almost loud, colors mixed with the silence. Woods Hole is a ghost town right now. For my first night, I thought I was the only person staying in the dorms. There’s a small gathering of scientific journalists here now for a conference. By small, I mean they all fit at one table in the cafeteria. I walked over to one of the beaches yesterday morning and had it all to myself.

On my last day, I met up with Chad and Jess. We spent the afternoon, tooling around the Cape in their camper van, stopping to hike out to the Knob or taking photos of lighthouses. We had hours of catching up on what is happening in each other’s lives. We had hours of laughter. My sides ache this morning from the shear amount of laughing. But I do miss my bed, my pillow. I miss my dog and honestly, I miss Michael. I always worry about the two of them when I am away. Will Josephine get enough attention? Will Michael eat a vegetable? Will he notice if the pets are out of water or remember to empty Rosie (robot vacuum)? I’ve done this before and often, left the two of them to their own devices, and I always come home to a dog and a person who are still breathing, both happy to see me.

Part of settling into the silence here and the snail’s pace of things is letting go. I realize that in the absence of outside noises, my internal voices get louder. Each thought is a thread or weed pulled from my brain. I am learning to pluck out the annoying voices, the ones who speak of worries and doubts. Michael and Josephine are just fine. In fact Josephine is probably just now noticing that I’ve been gone longer than usual. I am learning to organize the thoughts and voices leftover. I wonder if there’s something there, something useful. Is this a story? Is this a reminder? Is this a positive affirmation? Sometimes it is just a reminder to stare out into the ocean or look up into the night sky. You know how sometimes a person shares a picture of their dog with a goofy look on his face with a caption of “No thoughts, just vibes” ? This is what it means to stare out into the sea, to take a moment for just feeling your feet sink in the sand and the salty wind hitting your face. Vibes. No thoughts.

Give the thinking a rest.