I am thankful for quiet. Like peace, it is not an elaborate form of nothing. And like peace, it is not anything if it does not pervade what is inside you. Some people fight their entire lives for it, even if they do not name it as such; it is the cousin of contentment, what conceives reflection, the friend of the saint. There are many accoutrements that may go with it, sometimes a cup of tea is all that suffices, sometimes it is all the world that accompanies it. Not the daze of a daydream, not the nullifying high of something artificial inducing, it is to be awake, and it is to know. It is to be as poised as is a moment that solves the crisis of to be or not to be. The quiet flows into me, it flows out. It is the breath of the ephemeral, eternal now, realizing itself through my being merely me.