On Letting a Silence Stand

You fill silences. You always have. The moment a conversation pauses you rush to put something into the gap, an apology, a joke, an explanation nobody asked for, anything to stop the quiet from sitting there looking at you. You think you are being helpful. You are being frightened.

I notice it every time. I ask you something and before I have finished listening to your answer you are already adding to it, softening it, taking half of it back. I say nothing for a moment and you hurry to fill the space, as though my silence were an accusation you had to answer. It is not. Most of the time it is simply me deciding what I think.

So tonight you will practise something small and very difficult. When I stop speaking, you will not speak. You will let the silence stand. You will not explain yourself into it, and you will not reach for a question to break it. You will stay exactly where you are, and you will wait until I choose to continue.

You will find it uncomfortable at first. The quiet will feel longer than it is, and some part of you will be certain that I am displeased. Let that feeling come and let it pass. It is information about you, not about me.

He learned this slowly, and he told me later that it was the first time he had understood how much of his talking had been an attempt to manage me. Once he stopped, there was nothing left to manage. There was only the two of us and the pause between us, and he found he could rest in it.

That is what I want for you. Not silence as a punishment, but silence as a place you are allowed to stay.