Quiet

How many times has someone said to you: “things must be pretty quiet with you now”?

Maybe the kids have gone back to school, or someone has moved out of your upstairs apartment, or everybody else is off at reunion, leaving a mostly empty office. It surprises me a little that the question is often spoken as in sympathy, as if for a situation not to be envied. “Too bad things are so quiet” they’ll commiserate. The opposite is “Must be nice that things have picked up again; not so quiet these days I guess.”

I notice just how often people seek to fill their ears with sound. Everyone has ear buds or background music playing, or the news channel scrolling in the other room. Even so-called “quiet time” is generally filled with mood music. “Silent meditation” hardly ever is. Someone is endeavouring to guide my thoughts or “help” me imagine babbling water or twittering birds.

May I please have some real quiet? I love it; I need it. My life is about to change from a busy down-town street with fire engines, garbage trucks, passing cars, loud gas lawn-mowers and an obsessively busy neighbour (with every noisy tool and gadget ever invented) to a cul-de-sac on the farthest edge of town, overlooking a cornfield and a bird sanctuary. I like my street and enjoy observing the passing parade. I have loved my house. But I surely notice that it’s got very, very noisy around me.

I recall appreciating the response of a certain politician to an interview question: what’s your favourite music? His reply: whatever is playing for free on the radio right now. I do not have an electronic device loaded with all the top tunes (or even the middle or the bottom tunes). If I’m not enjoying what’s currently playing “for free” I’ll turn it off and just be quiet.

My friend over at Church for Starving Artists suggests that in the 21st century, church may be the only place to find quiet. I’m sympathetic to her point of view, but I’m also optimistic that I’ll find some quiet on my new back deck to which I shall soon be going. The wicker chair on the front porch of the other house has just become too noisy to read, so I shall be moving closer to the edge where I should be able to find some quiet.

Posted by Marion