More on the silence of running

… social silence, that is; prompted this time by Patrick Gale, Notes from an Exhibition which I picked up at Stansted airport on Friday, having had to wait so long for my flight from Glasgow, that I finished the book I thought would last for the whole trip just as we were landing in London, and needed something for the next leg of the journey to Cambridge. A serendipitous choice: the selection was so poor that I fully anticipated coming away with something unnoteworthy, but it’s so well written and storyline is so good that I’ll look for more of Gale’s books.  However, what prompted me to think more about running and silence are the Gale’s descriptions Friends meetings – Quaker worship. 

I first learnt about Quakers from a post grad supervisor from the Faeroes who was a Birthright Quaker; then learnt more from a close friend after she began attending Quaker meetings for their peacefulness.  I’m both curious and  unnerved at the thought of sitting in silence for an hour with people I don’t know. Would I  find the atmosphere too stifling, too claustrophobic?  alternatively, would I become so comfortable in that setting that I’d begin to talking aloud to myself  (and would that be seen as self-absorbed or ‘sharing’)? 

Yet silence as the ‘default’ is preferable – think of the preference for running with a visitor, or taking them on a dog walk, for example.  It makes the visit so much easier, because it is then perfectly acceptable to not-talk (and, probably, not-listen), which it most certainly when meeting, or visiting, or being visited by, someone ‘for coffee’ (in scare quotes because coffee is usually a euphemism for ‘gossip’, ‘complaint’, etc. (and, if being pedantic, is inaccurate in my case, not drinking coffee)).    

What is the difference between walking or running in silence with a  companion, and sitting in silence with other people?  Would the silence of a Quaker meeting be like of a London tube – with concomitant disapproval for staring?  Or gentler, like a yoga meditation group? 

I crave silence - or rather the absence of speech.  The bus to the airport, yesterday, was blissful, after two days of demanding listening and difficult talking (because at a conference).  I knew no one, needed to say nothing, didn’t even need to smile, 40 glorious minutes of wordlessness on my part – of mindlessness.  Thoughts come and go without any need to keep track, pursue, or judge them – less like thinking than watching clouds.  Today I haven’t the stamina even to write letters…