Today’s Prompt: What lives inside the silence of your life?
I’m reluctant to admit that I have a difficult time with silence, or quiet. Simultaneously, I often find environments overwhelming with noise. There’s a delicate balance that is tolerable for me.
This may be partly why I find reading so difficult. I can’t do it in a noisy environment, even though I used to read and write in bars, but those days are long over. Shoot, I’m not sure I remember much of what I read, likely using books in place of superficial conversations. Nowadays, when there’s time to read, the thought of sitting in a quiet space is disconcerting.
School is always loud, it seems. I usually arrive earlier than most others, nobody is around to make noise, yet it still feels loud. The rest of the day, and especially once the students arrive, the noise level just goes up.
When driving home, I often find myself opting for a podcast when I’m in the car. When I’m riding my bike, I like to groove to tunes, even doing a little bicycle-saddle-dancing at times.
It’s the space my thoughts have to flow that has come to define silence. External noise is a factor, but only insofar as it enables or inhibits my minds ability to generate and work with my thoughts and ideas. Sometimes, music is helpful, as it often is when I’m at the shop, giving me a rhythm to sync my thinking with. Other times, sounds are overpowering, taking all of my concentration away from what I’m doing so that I can focus on ignoring the noise, as often happens when I’m trying to write out an idea.
I do miss the silence I used to experience when I went fly fishing. There was a rhythm to it, felt but not heard, and there was space enough for my thoughts to roam, sometimes finding their way out through an utterance.
I would do well to find some quiet and just listen for a while.
Find this writing prompt and more over at Letters’ Lounge.
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