Subtleties Inside The Silence

Silence is not always silence. Or perhaps there are subtleties inside the silence that transform them. I think both statements might be true. I love to write. I don't even need to write for other people, I am, at times, completely happy writing for myself. It is a deep and abiding love of the written word that dwells inside of me. I would say that I was born in silence. I would say in the silence I heard a voice. That voice told me a story. I've been telling those stories ever since. There are stories I have never told. There are reasons for that. Some of them are too personal to tell. They are the echoes of events that should not be sullied by the voice. They are best in the silence of memory. There are other stories I have never told because they do not belong to me. Some of those stories I would love to tell because they are great stories and perhaps, someday, I can. There are yet other stories, the contents of which, possess the ability to hurt, the ability to bring about unintended consequences. Those stories are best handled very, very delicately. Then there are stories I cannot tell you because they were confided in me either in secrecy, with explicit wish for privacy. Both of which I understand. Stories are amazing things. I am fortunate to be able to tell a few.

Sometimes The World Gets Loud

Moving through the modern world there are times when the world simply gets too loud.  I am having one of those days.  I had a nice brunch with friends, then ran a set of errands (Fry's, Home Depot, Barnes & Noble), then started to look around for a new watch band at a couple of different places.  As I did, I noticed that the world was starting to get too loud.

The ambient music in the stores, the sound of other peoples cars, the overheard conversations - all of them were just too loud. I took that as a sign that it was time to go home and try and find some pease and silence. I am not sure what triggers days like that, sometimes I don't think there is a specific trigger, that it just happens.  Maybe there is a threshhold where we have simply heard enough.  When you consider all of the artifical noises in our modern world, I'm surprised it doesn't happen more often.

Silence Is Powerful In Its Simplicity

We seem to live in a world of noise. A thousand different noises, some subtle, some not so subtle, some simple, some complex. It can be a struggle to find a place where the noise falls away and we slip into a blissful silence.

I’m a huge fan of technology-in-general but technology doesn’t necessarily contribute to silence. I don’t think it inherently makes noise since we can control the on, off and volume buttons, but I think it provides a very easy avenue into a very noisy part of modern life.

When was the last time you simply sat in silence, alone with your thoughts, for an extended period of time? Ten minutes? An hour? An afternoon? An entire day? If you are like most people, I doubt you can remember. There have probably been stolen moments of silence, perhaps when you wake in the middle of the night, but a deliberately constructed silence in the middle of the day is a pretty rare thing.

Silence is powerful in its simplicity.

Take some time. Find silence. Find a space to simply be.

An Unexpected Evening

I am sitting in the living room of my apartment with the patio door wide open. According to the thermometer it is 59 degrees outside and sliding down from a beautiful day. The evening was especially beautiful tonight, calm, balmy, with just a hint of a breeze. It was an unexpected evening.

I am sitting in the living room, mostly in silence. I can hear the ticking of the clock on the kitchen wall, the clock that is slowly losing time - a minute or so a day. I don't know how long I have had it, probably well past it's life-cycle, considering it was probably less than $20 when I bought it long ago. I have two other clocks visible from where I generally sit in the living room, both of them satellite clocks, so I really have the kitchen wall clock more out of habit that anything else.

There is the sound of the refrigerator kicking on, the compressor and the fan, not loud, but a soft white hum in the background. There is the sound of my fingers dancing over the keyboard here on my laptop, writing this entry. If I close my eyes and listen there are incidental sounds coming in through the open door, the sounds of traffic and distant, indistinguishable voices, some belonging to children, some to adults.

The evening seems to be moving slowly, which is nice considering that my principle complaint over the last year or so has been the speed with which time is passing by. I have adopted a mantra that works, at times, when I am feeling overwhelmed by the pace of this life and that is a simple "slow, slow, slow" to remind me that a lot of the pressure, a lot of the rush that I feel is self-inflicted and that I do have it in my power to take a deep breath and slow things down.

I wonder at the passage of time, I wonder at my perception of the passage of time. I haven't gotten any magical insights or penetrating observations - time passes and I experience it's passage at a variety of speeds. Evenings like tonight seem rare, when I don't feel rushed and I don't feel hurried and I don't feel like there are a dozen things that I should be doing instead of simply just sitting here. I am just sitting here.

I was going to go sit outside for a while tonight, but I learned to my amusement that I had put the seat cushions on my favorite chair out a little early - and it rained on them - and the only thing I would have gotten sitting down would have been a wet butt. I can pass on that tonight.

My beloved T.R. is traveling for work, and I always miss her when she is. Her work can be very time consuming, twelve to fourteen hour days, a quick bite, a hot shower, sleep and repeat tends to lead to the whirlwind passage of time, or perhaps to a sense of timelessness. When she is traveling I miss her and I practice patience.

So tonight, on this unexpected evening, I am practicing simplicity and patience and silence.

Daily Life: Children of the Night - SHUT UP!

Silence is a precious commodity in our modern world. It is rare we can reach the point of true silence unless we are enclosed somewhere or isolated somewhere. I am craving a certain silence today and I suspect that the craving is going to be mostly denied. Here at work, between the chattering of voices, telephones reading, keyboards rattling, construction in the building, loud conversations in the hallway - well, silence seems a rare commodity.

When I find that I cannot attain silence, I can often attain a small degree of the same need by putting in my earphones and listening to my iPod. It is not silence, but it is mercifully free of the assorted distractions that come from working in an enclosed area with multiple people, including a few who have irritating voices, either in tone or mannerism.

Today, I am craving silence. I just flashed on the movie Love At First Bite, with George Hamilton. There is a scene in the movie where, awakened by the howling of wolves, Dracula arises from his coffin, blinks, and shouts: "Children of the Night - SHUT UP!". It is a funny little movie if you have never seen it before.