The Silence We Keep

Dear reader, I have been thinking about the places we go when we need to disappear. Not the kind of leaving that involves a suitcase or a train ticket, but the quiet retreat into the marrow of our own bones. There is a specific kind of cold that doesn’t just touch the skin; it cleanses the mind. It is the silence that follows a heavy snowfall, the kind that swallows the world whole until all you can hear is the rhythm of your own breath. We spend so much of our lives shouting to be heard, filling rooms with noise and urgency, that we forget the power of standing perfectly still in a vast, empty space. It is in that stillness that we finally meet ourselves, stripped of the roles we play and the masks we wear. Do you ever wonder if the mountains are waiting for us to stop talking, just so they can finally show us how to be small?

Frank Ivar Hansen has captured this profound stillness in his work titled Winter in Mountains. It feels like an invitation to step into that frozen, quiet air and simply breathe. Does this silence feel like a weight to you, or a relief?