The Loud Silence

I'm a busy person. Busy with normal chores, busy with art, busy with being busy. Most people are, and the times of old and the times of the future are all the same. We are all just busy.

This morning, and it is barely so in my neck of the woods, I sat completely still for a minute, and it was not on purpose. It was as if someone somewhere had pushed the pause button in my brain and my body happily responded.

I heard the silence in my world for the first time in ages.

I liked it.

I used to read quite a lot of books. I don't anymore because when I read books, it takes me out of my reality and into a world created by someone else. My eyes get tired reading books. But, it had to be silent when I read, because I totally absorbed myself into the characters and the situations created by the book authors.

My eyes get tired watching movies and television shows, too. And listening to NPR sometimes really jacks me up with all the coverage in Iran and Syria and Presidential Crap. The endless cackling of the two car guys drives me up a wall and the radio game shows are becoming a bit banal.

And, I discovered just today, just a very few minutes ago, that I like silence.

It feels good to have a few moments of nothingness. No radio blaring, no television, no audible interruptions. No dogs barking, no traffic noise, no aircraft overhead. Mental yoga.

I could concentrate.

I could pull clear thoughts out of my brain. I could rationally separate the dramas of the weekend into little storage compartments, to save or discard. I could let go. People have told me for years that I needed meditation and I wryly joked that possibly they meant to say "mediation," and didn't even consider sitting in silence for a few moments (or more) to recharge, reset and just breathe. I sat in silence this morning, and watched cardinals on the tree outside my window, dragonflies bobbing along with the wind and the butterflies moving erratically from one flower to the next in the garden. I started to focus on what I could actually hear from inside my studio (there are no ticking clocks here), which was the steady breathing of one of my dogs, summer crickets from outside one of the windows and the air from the A/C vent...and that was it. Before, I had not heard these things really.

Even in silence, there is noise. But, it is less severe, less intrusive. To a deaf person, it must be like closing one's eyes for moments of silence. Limiting the senses seems to strengthen them.

If I had to lose of of my senses, I'm certain that I would much prefer to lose my hearing. Because, in these few moments where there was no noise, it was blissful.