Quite

 I’m quiet now.

Not because I have nothing to say, but because words are no longer leading.

I watch people talk, explain, help, rescue, repeat.

I recognize it because I lived there once.

Helping so I could feel real.

Giving so I could feel needed.

Talking so I wouldn’t have to sit with myself.

Now I sit.

And I breathe.

And I’m not afraid of the silence anymore.

When I go into those rooms, I don’t feel superior.

I feel compassion.

Because I know what it’s like to think helping others will finally make the pain stop.

I know what it’s like to believe wisdom lives outside of me.

And then I think of my grandmother.

She didn’t talk much.

She didn’t argue.

She didn’t perform wisdom.

She just lived it.

She took me to the traditions in Abeokuta every April.

She let me see.

She let me feel.

She never rushed me.

She wanted me to study Ifa.

Math.

Biology.

Physics.

She wanted me to understand how the world actually works — not just the stories people tell about it.

But I was colonized in my mind.

I thought wisdom had to look European.

Sound academic.

Be certified.

Now I see it.

The moon doesn’t explain itself.

The sun doesn’t argue.

Gravity doesn’t negotiate.

Breath doesn’t lie.

When I wake up cold and the sun rises, I thank it.

When I walk slowly and my spine opens, I listen.

When I move at eighteen minutes a mile, I’m not failing — I’m healing.

This is the hardest work I’ve ever done.

Not strength.

Not endurance.

But presence.

I don’t need to convince anyone anymore.

I don’t need to be understood.

I don’t need to help to feel worthy.

My grandmother knew this.

She trusted time.

She trusted silence.

She trusted that one day I would return to what she showed me without words.

And I have.

I’m still learning.

Still curious.

Still studying the sky, the body, the breath.

Not to become something —

but to remember.

I am grateful.

Truly grateful.

And that is enough.

Yoruba Yogi