The Sounds of Silence

7.18.06

An unusual day of aloneness, not loneliness, today made me note the many sounds of silence as the city lay surpressed under an electric blanket turned on high. With the house to myself I was aware of the absence of children and spouse to tend to and the air circulating around my limbs as I passed from room to room, chasing once again dust balls and errant socks. I thought to fill my auricular space with NPR but opted against hearing any more news of war, stem cell research and Bush's latest blunders. Listening to music was an option but recently I feel too sensitive to lyrics and melodies and strains that weave into my pores and head towards my heart. So I completed my que haceres with thoughts swimming through my head like the very cool pool I wish I could have jumped in. Now there's a silent place, under water.

There are sounds around, of course; crickets, the cat thumping off of a table, my footsteps on the buckling oak floor boards, the mop swishing across the kitchen, the whooshing pistons of my stair stepper, the spray of shower on sweaty skin. Out in the world, traffic flies by, pedestrians on our street chatter away, Whole Foods is always a flush of activity with Blue Toothed conversations, crying babies, wine bottles clinking, the coffee grinder making mincemeat of dark beans. I chat with a fellow school mom, discuss the benefits of Omega fatty Acids with the chashier and hear the wheels of grocery carts whir and clunk along.

So why do I feel silence around me? Is everything hushed under the heat? Or have I turned down the volume in my head? We have so much noise in our lives; young children especially keep the pitch high these days as mine hone their debating skills and revel in ridicule. But much of it is actually inside, where the voices compete for attention and old tapes play like an answering machine stuck in replay. I try to conjur an image of what true silence would look like, so I can visualize during meditation but draw a blank, for all visual scenes have their aural accompaniments, even the desert has its scorpions scuttling between rocks with a tiny susurous.

My Yahoo search turned up a variety of results to illustrate this lack of sound but for some reason, this tiered dome spoke to me more than any other. I could imagine the silence of soft slippered monks taking their morning prayers in silence with heads bowed as they weave through the sunlight stencils on the ground. I have been thinking of churches lately, plan on spending time in one in Mexico, feeling the need to shut out the world around and look for God within.

Maybe that's what true silence is: the absence of distraction, the presence of grace in a fleeting moment of contemplation. Or merely being. Even with ears wide open, in a crowd, that place where peace reigns. That sound of empty calm. shhhh....