I was a talker, a people pleaser. If I was at a party with someone who was shy and nervous, I would find them and offer some hot dip, a cocktail, a sympathetic ear or all of the above. At dinner parties, I was often seated between strangers by the host on account of my reputation as a chatterbox. I made the smallest of talk, and I had more icebreakers than the Navy. This had been my training, my muscle memory from childhood. “Be charming,” my mother used to tell me. “Go check on your brother/uncle/grandpa to make sure they’re having a good time.” I had been good at being dutiful, good at refilling bowls of popcorn and good at asking questions. A pint-sized hostess, ready for the big time.
I didn’t always hate this about myself. Mostly, I liked that I could walk into a room and talk to pretty much anyone. I liked making people feel at ease and comfortable and seen. But, sometimes, I wondered what was going on underneath all that bustling around. I wondered what it would have been like to walk into a room and just… be. I wondered if I could have been at a party, sitting in a corner just existing and not passing appetizers or conversation starters. I wondered who I would have been if I wasn’t talking. I wondered if I would have existed at all.
I thought about my talking more and more as my kids grew up and left the house. They had been the people I talked to and talked about. They gave meaning to my prattling on, like they gave my life meaning. Then they were grown and gone, finding their own meaning, and this changed the quality of my people-pleasing. The people I most wanted to please were away, and maybe I needed to stop for a minute. I needed to take a beat between my old life and my new life.
I needed to just be quiet for a minute.
So I spent three days in Quebec City at le Monastere des Augustines, a 17th century convent and wellness center, to live in silence as the nuns who built this space did for their entire lives. The Augustine sisters were fully cloistered until the 1960s, spending their days in silent prayer and tending to the sick people of this small Canadian city. They pleased people without a word spoken. They healed people, they were midwives, they offered children sanctuary if their parents could not raise them. These sisters did not speak. They chose silence forever. And so I thought I could choose silence for three days, just to see what it was like.
The monastery is not silent for everyone. I thought this would be a challenge. I thought I would trip up the first time someone spoke, and I would want to ask them questions and make them comfortable. Fortunately, for me, when I arrived the staff gave me a button that said “silence,” which is the same in French and English, a button I tapped a few times if someone spoke to me. Everyone staying at the monastery (which was converted into a wellness retreat and museum honoring the Augustinian sisters in 2015) is asked to eat breakfast in the little restaurant, Le Vivoir, in silence. We all have the choice of staying in a private room in a renovated section of the monastery or in one of the former nun’s rooms with shared washroom accommodations. I preferred the latter, sleeping in a clean, spartan twin bed overlooking the Saint Lawrence River. I had my own sink for brushing my teeth, a small table for writing and a large wardrobe for my clothes. A space for me to hide in case I wanted to talk. I thought I would be desperate to talk.
I was wrong.
A quiet came over me as soon as I unpacked my small suitcase of leggings, sweatshirts, slippers and pajamas. A far cry from the 21 layers of clothing the sisters wore every day, but the ritual felt similar—a meditation of simple details. A notice of my tiny life and who I might be within it. The space I might hold in this quiet.
My phone pinged with messages from my sons, my partner, my work. I silenced them like I silenced myself.
The silence was easy for me. Easier than I ever would have believed. I smiled at people with my eyes if we were in the little shared reading nook outside my room at the same time. I joined yoga classes in the old stone cellar, French yoga classes that I understood with my eyes closed. I listened and listened to our shared breathing. I breathed my own breath. I was still in myself for three whole days no matter what. On a morning meditation walk through the old city, I listened and said nothing. I went to dinner on my own at a lively pub around the corner, Le Bedeau, where I sat at the bar and let everyone else’s conversation wash over me, unbothered. A small miracle.
I slept as well as I had as a little girl every night, tucked into my twin bed with a book and a hot tea and my own thoughts that felt slower and clearer. I walked a bit slower too. I meandered. I wandered. I went for a sunny afternoon at Strøm Nordic Spa, where I floated and plunged and exfoliated and did not say a word to anyone. They were all fine without me, a concept that terrified me before but now left me feeling soothed.
After three days of quiet, I understood something about myself. No one needs me to fill their spaces. The world won’t fall apart if I don’t fill someone’s drink or offer them a hot dip or make conversation. I can choose to be that person, the people-pleaser and the chatterbox. I like her sometimes.
But I like this new silent woman too. She holds her space. She pleases herself.
Photo by Song_about_summer/Shutterstock
