“I don’t think many people appreciate silence or realise that it is as close to music as you can get”
Toni Morrison
In Japan, silence takes up space in conversations. It sinks in between words and exhales. Silence blooms and silence bonds.
It is the margin between thought and words that needs no filling.
I can liken it to an invisible bridge, one that carries expression and contemplation between people—a perfect embodiment of Ma. Silence is the headroom between notes, alive with emotion, resonant with meaning.
Beyond planet Japan, silence screams in pain. Amidst images of merciless violence and unending cruelty, silence feels intolerable—a betrayal that must be broken. Chanted down. Bayed at with the full force of our anger. And while we scream, we pray that we are being heard.
Silence. Listening. They are an inseparable couple, constantly falling into each other.
Knowing when silence is beautiful and when it is a vice that breaks us seems so simple.
Here’s my story.
My mother is Africa. Like every woman who helped raise me, I was born in Kenya. Each of these women has fire inside them. From them, I learned that silence doesn't accompany pain. Pain must be expressed with hollering, wails, screams, and shouts. We must go all out with it, giving it power to bring us power—a soul-cleansing purge until our voices fail us and there is nothing left but silence, sunset eyes, and salty faces. I watched my mother howl against the pain of stomach ulcers. I saw it again when she gave birth to my stillborn sister. I heard her rail at my often absent father, whose response was always the same: silence. Deep, deep silence.
Silence has layers.
I always remember the silence.