IN SEARCH OF QUIET

Growing up my home was quiet—maybe in a good way, maybe not. Dad was banished to his basement workshop to listen to the Dixieland Jazz he loved, and I could only play my radio in the sewing room or my records when my parents were out.

The older I’ve gotten, the more I find noise distracting and the more noisy the world seems to get. It’s hard to find a restaurant where you’re not talking over loud music and louder diners. People use street voices in museums, and play phone games or watch videos without earphones on the train. In the gym, they sing along with the music coming through their earphones on the treadmill. (I do admire their ability to breathe and sing!) Sara Maitland in A Book of Silence comments that “silence, seen as an expression of awe, is becoming uncomfortable. We are asked to be silent less and less; churches and public libraries are no longer regarded as places where silence is appropriate, or even more simply polite. … Silence is not experienced as refreshing or as assisting concentration but as threatening and disturbing” (137).

Before the pandemic, we had a house in Vermont which was quiet until the guy across the road put in a shooting range, and spent every Saturday and Sunday with his buddies doing target practice. BANG. Bangbangbangbangbang. We traded that house for a condo in Branford. I’m not sure what I was thinking. I expected the pool conversations to drift up the hill to our deck, but not the constant loud maintenance noise: gas leaf blowers, paving equipment (that back up sound: beepbeepbeepbeep), the mowers, the thump thump of the beach cleaner at 7 AM. Never mind the planes from New Haven’s growing airport flying out at 8 AM on Sunday mornings. At home, the guy down the street is putting in a beautiful stone driveway. Stone saw anyone? All day Saturday, all day Sunday.

Thich Nhat Hanh suggests that “having plenty of stimuli makes it easy for us to distract ourselves from what we’re feeling. But when there is silence, all these things present themselves clearly.” In Act II of Tennessee Williams great play Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Big Mama turns on the stereo so there is music for Big Daddy’s birthday. The room is already loud and noisy with people “like a great aviary of chattering birds.” That is a group of people avoiding a whole lot of stuff they don’t want to face: homosexuality, infidelity, death—so much scary stuff—like all the scary stuff we’re dealing with these days: war, nukes, bringing back firing squads (?!), ICE, and on and on. Learning how to sit quietly with that anxiety is hard. Distraction can feel easier except the anxiety is always there when we turn out the light to try to sleep.

I know, I know: the only perfect quiet is the grave, and I should be grateful for all the care people are taking to make the world around me beautiful and functional, and for the joy and connection people feel when they are together, but I’m feeling more like my sweet dog, who startles then barks at every unfamiliar sound: Stop! Please can we have just a few moments of rest? Maybe the startle is a symptom of all the distress in the world.

How do you feel about quiet? Love it or hate it? Need it or avoid it? As always, I love hearing from you.

Thanks for reading.

Upcoming events:

Stephen Antoine Willis is coming to Factory Underground this summer on July 15 from 6 – 8 PM. Stephen is a fantastic spoken word poet. Opening up for him will be Jerry Johnson and Christine Kalafus. Check Stephen out here:

https://www.stevenwillispoetry.com/

. Register for free on Eventbrite! https://www.eventbrite.com/e/an-evening-of-poetry-featuring-steven-antoine-willis-special-guests-tickets-1985389126322 Hope to see you there!