Tonight, we walk the streets of Savannah with royalty. Traffic does not part when she walks by. Her unwitting subjects, trudging along the sidewalks, do not pay her a genuflecting glance. When they see her, they do not even recognize her sacred station. But they smile just the same. For one cannot help but smile at royalty. 

Her sovereign vestments are made of cotton and denim. Her robe, of spun atmosphere. Her jeweled crown, invisible to the human eye. But she is royal nonetheless. 

Her name is Maddie. Or as we like to call her, “Your Majesty.”

Her Grace stops at a crosswalk to wait for a string of traffic to pass before crossing Habersham Street. She is smiling at each car that passes, for no reason at all. It is Sunday evening, and for no explainable reason, she is happy. 

“Why are you so happy?” I ask Her Excellency as she monitors the traffic situation. 

Maddie cannot hear me speak, of course. She is deaf. But she has trained

herself to feel vocal vibrations and read lips. The random vibrations she senses, she associates with mental colors. The colors help her earmark all sounds and place them into categories. It is in this way that Her Highness can identify different noises. She can, for example, tell the difference between the deep-purple thrum of an A/C unit and the bright-red explosion of a dog barking. 

She replies to my question after sensing the peach-colored vibrations from my voice and reading my lips with her one good eye. 

That’s another thing. Her Highness’s left eye was removed because of glaucoma complications. Her right eye has glaucoma, but right now it works fine. The bad eye was giving her migraines. 

Maddie spent her teens in a murky depression. Sometimes Maddie wouldn’t…

I’m sure some of you have noticed I haven’t been writing as much as I used to. I get lots of emails asking why this is. Many of these emails are ultra-friendly emails, beginning with the words, “WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU!!!?”

To answer this, I need to start by telling you about our trip to Spain. 

Not long ago, we walked the Camino de Santiago for a second time. For a second time we were on foot in Spain, living out of our backpacks, communicating fluently in Spanish hand gestures. 

For a second time, we read Spanish signage, watched Spanish TV, ate Spanish foods, and enjoyed many authentic Spanish foodborne illnesses which transform the lower digestive region into nuclear field testing sites.

While we were there, something kinda cool happened to me. I heard a voice. I don’t know how to describe the voice. I don’t even know whose voice it was. But it was definitely a voice. It was, however, a quiet one. 

I suppose I could only hear the

voice because the noise of daily life died down. And I became acutely aware of the present moment. I had never really connected with the present moment before. I’d always been living in the next few moments. Or worse. I was reliving the decades of past moments. But in the silence of the Camino, I was here. I was now. And I heard the voice. 

We live in a loud world. 

Smart TVs, mobile phones, tablets, and other media devices blare frightening news, twenty-four-seven. The news isn’t even news anymore. It’s cleverly worded headline phrases with trigger words and slanted spin phrasing. Stories are announced by talking heads, capable of discussing a single media event for upwards of six or seven hours without once pausing to reapply hairspray. 

And…