Truly Getting Away

I miss silence.  Don’t get me wrong I enjoy music and television and the internet but sometimes I want to turn all that stuff off and enjoy the silence.

There are lots of great places to hike within an hour drive from my house.  I’ve been to many of them but I can still hear car traffic sometimes or worse yet I can see the cars through the trees or at the top of a hill.  I go hiking to get away from all that.

Give me the wind whistling through the trees.  The sound of my boots on the trail.  Birds chirping toward the morning sun.  I love listening to unseen animals rummage through the underbrush for food.  Then running for safety as I approach.

The silence is calming.  I realize though it can also be unsettling.  So many people are so used to the noise that surrounds us everyday.  To turn all that off is weird.  At first.  Stay with it and you can learn to enjoy the silence as well as the noise.

It is important to have time away from the constant noise and bustle of life.  To spend time with nothing but your own thoughts.  That’s why I like to go hiking.

I believe the word is balance, or maybe its contentment.  I’m working toward both.  How about you?

Pack out what you pack in.