Solitude is Air I breath

The first time I experience silence when I was in my youth. I cannot recall at what age. 16 perhaps.

​On my knee I prayed.
Deep in prayer.
Silence surrounded me.
Silence emerged within.
I sensed for the first time peace in me.
​A peace I never forget.
A peace I never felt before.
​A peace I never understood.
A peace of love and calmness lingered around and within me.
​Wrapped by the peace and love in silence.
​That moment of silence.
That moment of peace. 
Deep comfort and solace I felt then.

​Never did I realise years later, after my conversion and found God, it began my journey of my solitude life into deep silence, into contemplation. Thomas Merton's echoes how I feel, what I discover(ed) - the 'joys of silence, the peace of solitude'.  I need air to breath, to be alive. Solitude and deep silence is now my breath, my air.