Life As Performance Art 23

¡Feliz madrugada, Gentle Reader! Madrugada is a Spanish word that cannot be directly translated into English for the simple reason that it defines the time of day between midnight and the early dawn, or I could say, Happy small hours of the morning, Gentle Reader! I'm no longer sleeping well, at least not every night, and right now I am coping on five hours or so and it is just past four in the morning. There are a couple of suspicious looking guys chatting in low voices outside my window, so I have closed the window so I don't have to hear them. Ambient noise is always a problem in apartment living, and so much the worse if you happen to live downtown. There is a woman in my building who has a loud shrill and very annoying voice and has a tendency of getting in people's face. I think she might be on the asperger's spectrum, and she has taken to having chats at the doorway of a tenant who lives on my floor. Fortunately the chats are brief, but her voice is very annoying, and I don't think I like feeling exposed to people's mental illness symptoms when I'm off duty from work. But this can't always be done, especially when twenty-four of the tenants in my building are living with mental health disorders, which means that the rest of us get to live with their symptoms, sometimes, whether we like to or not. Well it is a couple of hours later now, I have had breakfast, a long luxurious nap and I feel almost human. I have switched off the radio because they are playing unlistenable garbage this morning and have settled instead for my Bizet CD of the Carmen Suites. Rather nice with Cuban dark roast coffee. Yes, noise. It's everywhere, and somehow, if you don't seem to like noise then other people are going to imagine there is something wrong with you, not because the noise is bad or awful but because no one seems to value or appreciate the value of silence. But for the grace of God and earplugs go I. I understand why most people don't like silence. It is frightening for many people. They then have to hear the voices inside their head and they are not going to like what they are saying. Or they are going to be confronted with their own inner void, emptiness and lack of soul, and that is terrifying. It is like kissing the abyss. I seem to be one of those rare beings who not only can tolerate, but also loves silence. But I have long ago made peace with my voices and my demons now all live in securely locked cages. And I am not afraid of being faced with my own emptiness. I think because God feels close and it is God who fills the emptiness. This reminds me of one night, my third time in Mexico City, when I was just getting ready to go to sleep. When I turned off the light I had a sudden terror of death, of suddenly being nothing. I was also soon facing a health crisis that might have easily sent me over. But as I lay there, paralysed with fear, I quietly cried out to God. I told him exactly what was terrifying me and I asked him for help. Suddenly, I went into a deep state of repose. When I came to, I was overwhelmed with a sense of peace and rest, knowing that all was well, that all manner of thing shall be well. I have never been struck by that kind of fear since that night seven years ago, and I know that in the silence I can meet my creator, just as when I die and enter into the ultimate silence, there he will be waiting for me and welcoming me with open arms of love. Gentle Reader, even if you do not yet believe, please know that God is always there, that he is closer to you than your own heartbeat, and if you cry out to him from the depths of your heart, he will hear you and you will receive an answer. But you must cry out from the very depths of your heart, for that is the prayer that gets heard.