I've found my marbles.

By Emily Paulos, Berkeley, California, U.S.

The last time I remember being struck with the deafening noise of silence was when I had just come back to my studio apartment in West Oakland and sat on the coach after a three-month stint teaching back-to-back digital storytelling workshops on the road. Nonstop airports, taxis, traffic, dirt, smells, noise, living out of a suitcase, crossing paths with loads of people, holding countless gems of personal stories just long enough for care and feeding, then releasing them out the top of my head, eating every meal in a restaurant, jostling laptops through security, cajoling technology and Joe from state to state. And then the pure, dead silence of being in my own home, alone. It rang in my ears like a pressure on my brain. Decompressing took not minutes or hours, but days. To find center, to replenish, to go back into balance. That was over 15 years ago. 

Today, in this moment, I'm feeling that same deafening silence. I've just come to StoryCenter’s office, alone for the first time since California’s shelter-in-place began in March. Shelter-in-place with my rambunctious nine-year-old and engaging twelve-year-old and husband / StoryCenter co-worker. Living weeks on end as a family of four in one house, day after day with school, personal, work demands all meshing into one loud never-ending stream of noise. Audiobooks, Zoom meetings, squabbles, phone calls, Alexa farts, Facebook feeds, YouTube videos, texts, payroll cuts, late nights, dirty laundry, buried floors, dead batteries, unsaved changes, unburied bits of broken glass and rusty nails in the new victory garden, dried banana peels, more Zoom meetings, lost mail, chores, chores, and more chores, on and on. 

Today is May 5, Giving Tuesday. I give thanks for the community of storytellers and supporters of our efforts. I give thanks for the hard work of our staff and associates. And for the for the first time in weeks, I give thanks for the silence. It's golden.