Quiet Places

My life is extremely noisy. I work in a crowded office that I share with our IT guy and our servers. Going across the road to the main part of my place of employement, I hear construction equipment, children shrieking, roosters crowing, and the occasional boom of somebody who loves loud base driving by. My home whirrs and breathes its own special music, made by the things we have decided are necessary for a good life. When I drive I turn the music up really loud, to go above the loud wind that rushes past my car. From the second I awaken on a normal day until turn off the light, my life is filled with noise.

I, like most modern people, take all of this in stride. The noise becomes part of the sensory intake, just like colors and smells, is processed for its value and then either discarded or dealt with. Sometimes, if I'm in a relatively quiet atmosphere and tring to hear something in particular, I can close my eyes and literally stretch my sense of hearing beyond its normal boundaries until I land on the sound I'm searching for. It's a trick I learned when I was younger. Absence of one sense, even if only for a brief moment, heightens the others. It's a strange sensation, but one I don't use often, because usually I have more noise than I know what to do with. I like the noises of my life. It is comforting, on one level, to hear the same things every day. It's also a sort of running game I play with myself--identify that bird, what sort of airplane is that, do I know that person just by their walk? Absence of noise in my daily life is usually a signal that soemthing is wrong--something has stopped working, breathing, living, caring. The noise is as comfortable as my pajamas, always there and always telling me that things are ok.

I like noise, that is, until it goes away. Then I loathe it. Santini and I enjoy camping and try to get out to the woods when we can. He likes it because he gets to play with fire, go fishing, play with our cool camping gear and cook meat over an open flame (one of his many talents, I might add). I like it because the noise goes away. The noise is pushy--when it goes, I feel like the tide has finally stopped pulling. The noise reminds me of the thousand little things I need to remember--when it goes, I remember myself. Quiet places give noise a real run for its money in that it begs for me to be selfish, to think about the things in my life that are important to me. A quiet place can be the woods on the side of a green mountain or the small space between Santini and the back of the couch, where all I hear is breath and his heartbeat.

I spent some time on my birthday recently in a quiet place. In the middle of a forest, with nothing but a small bench, a big lake and the trail that brought us there, I allowed my brain to shut down as much as it can and still keep me alive and I just was. The lake was still, the trees were still, Santini was still--even I was still. Those who know me know that stillness isn't one of my qualities, but I acheived it that day. I offered my soul to the quiet and came back feeling more whole and at peace. It was a long drive to this place, but in my mind it was worth the moments of quiet I got. I hold those moments of calm and peace inside my core, around my lower back and spine, and keep them like tulip bulbs, warm and safe but still there and waiting for the right time to bloom. When they do, I'm reminded of the life I have and I become happy almost to tears.