Noise

Silence is one of the great victims of modern culture. 
- John O'Donohue, Anam Cara

We had an opportunity this weekend to enjoy silence.

It was a particular sort of silence:  the silence that occurs when ordinary noises are extinguished.  Cars, trains, leaf-blowers, lawn-mowers, trash cans, all inaudible; mechanical klunkings and hummings and honkings and buzzings, all absent.  There was no tick of a clock, no swish of clothes-washer or dishwasher, no gurgle of a drain, rumble of a vacuum, or whir of the air conditioning.  Not even the music of the iPod, which Herself usually employs to drown out the racket of daily life.

The detritus of sound, all swept away.

Instead, there were solely the gurgle of a stream, the chirp of crickets, the crackle of campfire. Talk on occasion, and comfortable lulls in between sentences. The turn of a page of a book. A birdcall here and there. That was all.

Such marvelous aural space, to quiet the mind and soothe the overstimulated, exhausted brain.

We need to find more of such silence.  Even tiny pieces, here and there, would be rejuvenating.