A Quiet Thing 

A Quiet Thing follows my reflection on my first week of university in October 2022, thinking back on the quiet sadness of being away from home and having to make something of yourself, but a reminder that love, which is the fabric of life, can break into that aloneness and that having a purpose gives perseverance.  

By: Sariah Lake 

The morning comes in coldly, a quiet thing. Indigo lifting only to grey. This isn’t what a day should be but it is so I savour the few moments I can watch the ceiling before I have to start everything. 

You see I like to pretend, when I look at the ceiling, that I’m at home. Like actually at home, and when I look out the window, the sun will pour in, and the rooster will cry out, gold will erupt against a hillside, the morning will come in as mornings should, a loud thing. A vibrant thing. 

These moments don’t last long, my body realises it’s awake and the cold creeps under my duvet and reminds me where I am. It takes three sharp breaths before I push the covers away, swing my legs down and feel around for my slippers. 

I let the yellowed lamp introduce its minimal sun glow into my room, my chest is heavy. It is my seventh morning in a place where no one knows me, in a place where I do everything the wrong way. The morning overlooks my seventh day of being lost amongst throngs of other students, of speaking in lectures where people squint and chuckle at my accent, my voice in the room, a quiet thing. My seventh night approaches, cold. 

The lamplight reaches the images on my wall, I see the faces of my family. My chest is light, the gold picks up my mothers’ face. I can hear her say I belong in every room; I can hear her whisper prayers over me when I sleep. My father’s eyes smile in his photo, the day it was taken I was a baby, everything I did filled him with pride. I remember that now, smiling eyes and lowered voices, I remember the things that make someone go to places where no one understands them or even tries to. The things that make you move and adapt and take deep breaths and cry in silence. The things that make you journal instead of calling home. The things that make you work late at night under lamp light. The things that make you sacrifice the sun.  

Years ago, my parents moved, adapted, sacrificed. I wonder if they felt it too, each morning a laboured movement, the burden great but also silent, a quiet thing. I wonder if they thought of me then, although years before I was born, as something worth sacrificing the sun for. The work they did before they had me and raised me at home. Like actually at home. 

I push out of my accom into a barely lit morning, my fingers and nose burning in the air, but an inner warmth, a smaller voice, a love, a quiet thing keeps me going. 

~ sariah lake ©