Field Note No. 3- The Gift of Quiet
- Mama Riffle
- Dec 31, 2025
- 2 min read
Updated: Jan 4
For my birthday on December 5, my mom gifted me a small bundle of things—ear plugs, a face mask, and a few other thoughtful odds and ends. I don’t use ear plugs, so they went into my drawer without much thought.
A few weeks later, I told her how deeply I’d been sleeping with the face mask, and she asked if I’d tried the ear plugs too. I laughed and told her no, I never use ear plugs.
She just smiled, that knowing mother-smile. “Maybe you’ll find a time to use them when the house is too loud,” she said.
I couldn’t imagine when that moment would come, but I held onto her suggestion anyway—tucked away like something waiting for its time.
Yesterday, it came.
I’ve been sick, and I can never fall asleep during the day, but exhaustion pressed on me in a way I couldn’t ignore. Remembering the ear plugs, I decided to try them.
The moment I put them in, the world went quiet.
The house—usually bursting with the noise of six children, a bouncing basketball, and all the life that fills our days—fell away.
I slept for three uninterrupted hours.
This morning, still not feeling well, I tried to stay in bed a little longer. The noise started up the way it always does: footsteps, laughter, arguments, the thud of that basketball outside my window.
And then I remembered—the ear plugs.
I put them in.
And just like that, everything softened.
The tension in my muscles melted.
The stillness held me like the warm hug I didn’t know I needed.
No more chattering.
No more banging.
No more noise circling inside my head.
Just a welcomed silence.
A gifted moment to breathe.
It felt like stepping into a small, sacred space I hadn’t realized was waiting for me—a space my mom, in her gentle wisdom, had quietly offered me weeks before.
Maybe you’ve had a moment like that—
when the world seems to pause,
and your own breath and heartbeat suddenly feel holy in the hush.
May we each be blessed with the unexpected moments of quiet that feel like small miracles of motherhood.
And may we each be blessed with ear plugs.
