Note: The following is based on my 04-16-2015 journal entry from our Wabash River to the Gulf of Mexico (source-to-sea) kayak trip.
Silence fills most of our days. A comfortable silence that comes with familiarity. We’ve all experienced the opposite, the uncomfortable kind. You know, when you sit beside an acquaintance and the silence becomes loud. The only way to quiet the silence is to say something, and the something you finally say is forced and usually makes no sense. Since you can’t grab your words and stuff them back in your mouth, you ask something like, “What… uh… shoe size do you wear?” After which you turn red and mutter to yourself, I can’t believe those words came out of my mouth. You dummy!
This afternoon, John broke one of our comfortable silences when he asked, “Hey, did your sleep pad hold its air last night?”
I considered John’s question. “I think it did. I don’t remember waking up on the ground.”
Slow leaks have developed in our Klymit sleep pads. We like these pads, and at less than a pound each, they add very little size or weight to our stash of gear. However, halfway through the night, we have woken to find the extra protection they provide from the hard, COLD ground gone.
When we were staying with a friend in Peru a couple days ago, John hauled the pads into the kitchen and inflated them. Then he scrunched them down small enough to fit in the sink. A brief check under the slowly running water showed that while there were no punctures, there were slow leaks from each of the auxiliary pump valves. The pads inflate quickly and easily with a few puffs into the primary valve. In the event we want a tighter fill, we can use a small hand pump bulb to add more air via the auxiliary valves. John opened and cleaned the valves. Despite cleaning, one pad still leaked slowly at the valve. Hmmm… Since I am in charge of making the bed each night, I may place the leaky pad on John’s side of the tent.
A call to Klymit met with an enthusiastic and helpful customer service associate who offered two options. One—she could send replacement pads in a style of our choosing. Two—she could send us valve caps that would completely seal the auxiliary valve. Despite her offering both options at no cost to us, John believed that option two would probably resolve the issue and be more convenient. The Klymit associate told John she would send the valves to some place along our route, so he gave her the address of the post office in Logansport, Indiana, where we will be collecting our next food drop.
The fact that I wasn’t sure if my sleep pad leaked last night started a deeper conversation. (It seems we either paddle in comfortable silence or engage in deep conversation. Or sing, or John does an impersonation—or I wish he were silent.) I commented, “I knew when the pad didn’t work but not when it did. We take so many details for granted.”
John continued paddling without responding. I’ve learned to equate a pause in the conversation with a sign he is pondering. Conversely, no pause means he will soon be bloviating. He said, “I agree. We can apply this logic in many areas of our lives, not just things.”
I jumped in. “Yeah. We are aware of absences more than presences. We take a person for granted until they are gone. Then it is too late.”
John thought a moment longer. “Kinda like a chair. You don’t pay any attention to it until you go to sit on it, and it’s not there.”
Sometimes, things vanish from your life without you even noticing their absence. Like the rapids or the wind. They are present, and then they are not, but it is difficult to determine the exact moment they vanished.
And the conversation continued until we couldn’t remember how it started. And then we returned to comfortable silence.
Here’s the thing: John is one of the few people with whom I can sit in comfortable silence. We can talk or not talk for hours. At what point in our relationship did silence become comfortable? Why do certain relationships reach this level while others do not? With whom can you sit in comfortable silence? People and things pass into and out of our lives daily without our notice. Are there people in your life whom you take for granted? Whose absence would leave a big hole in your life? Whose presence do you need to acknowledge?
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Editor’s Note: This is one of a series of articles and opinions written by a group of retired and current teachers — LaNae Abnet, Ken Ballinger, Billy Kreigh, Kathy Schwartz, and Anna Spalding. Their intent is to spur discussions at the dinner table and elsewhere. You may also voice your thoughts and reactions via The News-Banner’s letters to editor.
