Guuye ~ Гүүеэ

As I mentioned in my previous post I am addicted to Twitter. I didn’t realise how much there is going on in the world and Twitter is my personalised window onto the world. So today @TrishaNicholson, one of my Twitter ‘tweeps’ as she calls everybody tweeted an article called An Infinite Noise by Daisy Hickman who writes on the Sunny Room Studio. This article was about silence… and it inspired me to write my own post on it …

‘What do you miss about Mongolia?’ asked my English teacher. After a few minutes of thinking ‘The silence’ I answered.

That was ten years ago when I was studying English in London. The school where I studied English was on Piccadilly and I travelled by the tube and train from where I was staying. While I waited for trains I would tilt my head and look up to the sky to free myself from all the things going on. I longed for the silent low hills and remembered the times my family used binoculars to spot motorbikes or cars. Sant, our small village in Mongolia had only a few cars then and many people had motorbikes. So we could recognise any cars from distance a few miles away.

When I was in my teens my parents would move to the country near a well or a river to look after our sheep, goats and cows. We used mostly cow dung for fuelling our fire. I collected dung in the open steppe. I loved this time, having this opportunity to think and enjoy the wilderness.

When I met my husband I think I was quiet. He wrote an email to me, from London to Ulaanbaatar mentioning silence. He found a saying that the silence between sounds makes music beautiful. I still remember it and it was a lovely compliment.

I appreciate silence when my babies fall asleep after playing all day, asking questions and reading stories.

Now, I experience silence at my son Billy’s grave. Every day my husband or I go and light a candle. My emotions are different every time. Most days I sit on my knees and just be there. I feel my baby boy everywhere, in the sunshine, the moonlight, gentle breeze and angry storms.

Lynn Johnston said ‘The most profound statements are often said in silence.’ I couldn’t agree more.