Some Words Breathe Differently

Our relationship with silence speaks volumes about our mental health. Silence is often filled with words, built not by our mouths but with our hands instead.

Sometimes our palms and paper know more about the state of our minds than they, themselves. Perspective builds the backbone of silence, it adds character, it allows us to create a world within the one we are written in. Words breathe differently in the multitude of ways they can be strung together, a medium that shapes you as you create it. Ella Nore spent more days in the depths of her notebook reading entries from her past to see where and how she's grown.

Somewhere nestled within paper walls told a story of someone wise beyond their years who spent more time creating homes, worlds built within their words.

Understanding perspective was her love language as she spent more time nose-deep analyzing details well beyond the written words. Each decade held a nostalgic scent and tone. Every story that was written reminded her why she was there, searching for meaning, gaining perspective, and writing her own one day. Her mind spun faster than the dated fans that arched back and forth relentlessly above her. It added character to the room; instinctively, it felt a lot like breathing, like being cradled in the womb.

Unknowingly the strongest bonds with silence are born out of necessity rather than choice. She had the world at her fingertips, romanticizing how she put the 'Miss' in understood. It was a typical Monday, dreary at best while in her favourite checkered jeans at her second home, the library. She had a curiosity that paired with the hope that left an emotional imprint on the tip of her fingers, allowing the texture of the unread to choose her; she wore the words of others quite well.

Today's selection was relatively small, more like a notebook, velvet in its prime, and black. If a little black dress could be a book, this was it. Each step that followed carried the weight of what was to come, a slow dance, if you will. She chose the furthest table, arguably where the most pages were read. She leaned against the glass and was welcomed by the vibrations of the lives en route, quickly passing by. She tucked her hair behind her ears, crossed her legs and wondered how many eyes have looked in and out all of these years.

Five hours passed by as she read each page a handful of times, letting the words sink in, but as she went to turn the page, she felt the top right corner; and she was met with one of those moments you only dream about. A small square cut out in the center of the remaining pages with an envelope nestled inside. She rubbed her eyes as if it would magically make this moment make more sense. But there she was, the last in the library and presumably the first to see what had made this book it's home. Delicately placed, without reason, was a life-changing amount of money. In proper Ella form, she wondered what the story behind the mysterious $20,000 was. Questioned spiralled in her mind...

How did it get there? Why did this book pick her? How long had it listened to other books get the ability to feel the palms of strangers while their pages enjoyed fresh air?

We have the ability to see, think, feel, and understand; this little black book reminded Ella of just that.

The only words that followed were, "If you're reading this, you value the weight of words rather than romanticizing with the exterior instead." These words could finally breathe.