“Music and silence combine strongly because music is done with silence, and silence is full of music.” ~ Marcel Marceau I struggle with silence. I write in the pre-dawn hours to classical music, during the day to one of a few dozen playlists. I run to NPR when I need to keep a steady, easy pace, switching over to up-tempo music when the legs are ready to work. I walk to podcasts. I read to music, or worse, to the news. It is so quiet here at night, I can't sleep without a white noise machine.
But I'm discovering the music of silence.
Autumn brings me to the forest. In the late afternoon, when my eyes have swelled and my brain has shrunk from hours in front of the computer, I take long rambles through the woods. I force myself to go it alone. To listen. It's scary for me to set out without music or podcast, for it means I have only my thoughts to keep me company. But there is music in the silence.
The salal and salmonberry rustle as creatures take umbrage at my intrusion. My knees click in complaint, for they've already suffered a morning run. My breath puffs and my heartbeat thrums as I plod up a steep slope. The susurration of the tide on the shore far below, the bellow of a foghorn, the whine of a plane propeller, the pneumatic holler of geese and the uneven call and response of my worries and hopes create a symphony of sound.
The quieter I become, the louder the world seems. I have silenced social media, finding the crowded, noisiest rooms are the loneliest. Writing is lonely enough. And filling it with others' noise means I'm not present on my own page.
Welcoming stillness may just give me a chance to hear the most important thing. And what could that be? Shhh...
Listen...