What happens when we hear life happening?

What do we hear when the world goes quiet?

Right now, I hear my own voice asking me this question. I hear myself searching for a spark. 

I can hear the question echoing, reverberating in the silence, trying to locate some starting point. Where do I begin? And how? 

This cavernous silence expands and I feel like it's all I will ever hear again. Then I change the question. After revisiting the quote from yesterday’s prompt and considering the accompanying questions, there's a spark, there's motivation, there's a way to get moving. I am able to generate a little bit of momentum.

When all I can hear is silence and when I am frozen by the silence, when the silence is not delivering peace, I think of who I hear sleeping at the end of the hallway, who I hear sleeping beside me. Then, very quickly, I hear them waking. I hear them at breakfast discussing the day. I hear them laughing. I hear them coming home from a day of adventure, excited to share their stories. I hear their hearts and feel their love, and very quickly realize I am again moving.

Hearing my loved ones, I have been refilling the well. 

I have been creating, simply by hearing, by working hard to hear my loved ones.

Despite the often deafening stress of raising girls and searching for a job and being unable to source a poem and wondering if I'm being the best partner I can be, a simple action can help me quiet the noise and refill the well and find peace. 

If I can focus on this simple act of hearing the life that is happening all around me, the resulting sensation is a feeling of peace. When I can allow myself to hear, I can feel peace. 

And then, I am no longer overwhelmed by a world gone quiet; I am inspired by it.