Lessons in stillness

Meghan O’Rourke travels to one of the quietest places on earth for lessons in stillness. 

The Olympic National Park stretches down coastal Washington and east toward Seattle on a thumb of land known as the Olympic Peninsula, some 60 miles long by 90 miles wide.

Around a three-hour ride by car from Seattle, it feels much farther, as if you have passed into an otherworldly realm.