SILENCE

I stepped out into the backyard with the intention of closing the chicken pen for the night. The sun had just set and the stars were visible in the night sky. I paused to look up. Sometimes I am amazed at the number of stars that I can see in the night sky while still in the city with light pollution. As I stood there looking up at the sky, I suddenly realized how quiet it was. There were no sounds of cars on the roads, no bird song. There wasn’t even a rustling of the leaves from the wind. It was so quiet that I thought that I might have lost my hearing. Right at the moment I started to panic, I heard a car driving somewhere in the distance and I sighed a little in relief.

I live in the city. The neighborhood is always filled with sounds of traffic, cars blaring music with the base turned up so that you can feel the vibrations even though your sitting on the couch inside the house. Often, I can hear children playing basketball or some game that has them running up and down the street. Sirens and helicopters make an occasional entrance into this neighborhood orchestra. Recently, a pair of owls can be heard calling back and forth to each other. The other evening those two owls flew into a tall tree whose limbs dangle over our backyard. Josephine saw the big birds swoop in for a landing, her ears perking up. Her whole body went rigid and on guard as she barked at the closest owl. They stayed for a few minutes before flying off over the house.

My city is a far cry from New York City where you are constantly accosted with noise. Cars honking. People yelling. Construction. Sirens. The minute you step inside Central Park though, all of that noise dissipates. If you walk to the deepest center of the park, the noise of the city completely disappears, but only to be replaced with the sounds of birds and people laughing. For a moment though, you could easily believe that there was no city. In the moments when I realized I could hear a car in the distance, I thought about the last time I was in Central Park. There was snow. There are many pockets inside New York City where you can go to get away from the noise of the city. Once, I rode the elevator to the top of the Empire State Building and it was just me and the elevator attendant. It was a long, silent ride to the top. Central Park is still my favorite respite from the city noise.

So often, I have longed for peace and quiet. I long for moments of silence to sit and read without interruption. The chatter can be too much. There is always a TV on or music playing or someone talking at me. The demand for my attention can be overwhelming. I tend to savor those rare moments when there is quiet in the house. Those weekend mornings when everyone else is sleeping are mornings to be savored. Yet, I found the silence I had encountered in the backyard to be unsettling. It was a complete void of any sound and in that moment, my brain listed all the things it wasn’t hearing. Ever since, I have been making a point to pause for a moment each day. I close my eyes and make a mental list of all the things I am hearing. Then I list all of the things I am not hearing. If I have extra time, I think about the things I miss hearing. When I think about the things I miss hearing, I can hear them.

They are whispers, barely audible, but I can hear them.