Having been awakened at daylight most days for the past couple of months to the rumbling and beeping of heavy equipment, the roar of big trucks and the screeching of chain saws as the hill beside my house is denuded of trees (no, this is not a diatribe against clear-cutting; I’ll leave that debate for another day) I realize that there’s nothing like a little noise to make you appreciate silence.
We live in a relatively quiet spot in a rural area, although I realize that quiet is relative. I learned this when we once had friends who lived in suburbia visit, and the next morning they asked us how we managed to sleep with all that racket outside. Mystified, we asked what they were talking about and they cited the tree frogs chirping, owls hooting, birds singing, dogs barking, and coyotes howling. Background sound that is as natural to country living as sirens wailing, people yelling, and music blaring are to city life.
I try to be tolerant of noise since I make some myself at times. We’ve all been in situations where you’re trying to have a nice conversation with your significant other in a restaurant when the six people at a nearby table are raucously laughing and talking over each other at the top of their lungs to be heard. It’s extremely annoying unless, of course, you are one of those at the crowded table having a good time and blissfully unaware of the dirty looks your fellow diners are shooting your way.
As I said, I am guilty of noise-making, too. I am, after all, of the generation that turned the music up – way up; a generation that is now making the hearing aid industry rich. But I am trying to be more aware of the sensibilities of others and am increasingly conscious of how bothersome noise can be if you’re not the one making it.
It’s amazing how many times I’ve been out in nature, enjoying the awe-inspiring sights that should take your breath away, except too many people have plenty of breath to loudly yack about sports or their social life or what they’re going to have for lunch or why can’t they get a cell signal. At the beach, too many people feel they have to share their conversations – or their taste in music – with the rest of us, even to the point of drowning out the crashing of the waves. And don’t get me started on the people who wander around in public places loudly carrying on invisible conversations with a thing stuck in their ear.
F and I spend a lot of time amid nature, even if it’s on our deck or patio enjoying the fresh air and the view and, sometimes, the peace and quiet. While our home, as I mentioned, is in a relatively quiet area, there seems to always be noise of some sort, loud or soft, near or far away, natural or man-made. But there are rare times when all is silent: no distant car engines, no dogs barking, no birds singing, not even the wind rustling the trees. It’s a miraculous moment caught in time, and you realize this is what the world was like for most of its existence before humans decided to liven things up.
And in the absence of all that noise, when all is still and silent, I think to myself that this is the very best time to just sit back and listen.