So I'm not going to be the Ashram social bunny anymore, I've decided. No more scurrying, gossiping, joking. No more spotlight-hogging or conversation-dominating. No more verbal tap-dancing for pennies of affirmation. It's time to change. Now that Richard is gone, I'm going to make the remainder of my stay a completely quiet experience. This will be difficult, but not impossible, because silence is universally respected at the Ashram. The whole community will support it, recognizing your decision as a disciplined act of devotion. In the bookstore they even sell little badges you can wear which read, "I am in Silence."

I'm going to buy four of those little badges.

On the drive back to the Ashram, I really let myself dip into a fantasy about just how silent I am going to become now. I will be so silent that it will make me famous. I imagine myself becoming known as That Quiet Girl. I'll just keep to the Ashram schedule, take my meals in solitude, meditate for endless hours every day and scrub the temple floors without making a peep. My only interaction with others will be to smile beatifically at them from within my selfcontained world of stillness and piety. People will talk about me. They'll ask, "Who is That Quiet Girl in the Back of the Temple, always scrubbing the floors, down on her knees? She never speaks. She's so elusive. She's so mystical. I can't even imagine what her voice sounds like. You never even hear her coming up behind you on the garden path when she's out walking . . . she moves as silently as the breeze. She must be in a constant state of meditative communion with God. She's the quietest girl I've ever seen."Eat, Pray, Love