I’m a fan of silence. I don’t listen to music or have any media on at all when I’m at home, even when I am knitting or doing something quiet.
It helps me shut off the thinking and simply be. If I’m listening to music I’m analyzing it. I don’t listen to music in my car, either, for the same reason. My head gets into it and I get way too easily distracted. So for 90% of the time it’s just me and silence hanging out. And that works really well for me.
People are always a little shocked when they hear me say that, because apparently, if one is a musician, one should be listening incessantly to music. I have a band in my head. They can play anything I want to hear, and they’re really good. Even stuff that hasn’t even been written. They keep me well supplied with sounds. I don’t need yer new fangled digitized streaming yadda yadda yadda. No thanks.
My car came with a SiriusXM package which I didn’t ask for. They sent me a statement, saying my first month was free and then they would start billing me every month. I called them up and said, “No thanks, I don’t want your service. I don’t listen to music in my car.” They really had trouble believing that, but once they got their heads around that, they told me I could listen on my phone or at home through my internet. I finally had to tell them I have a serious neuro-auditory disorder that makes all music sound like electronic forks being thrown down a copper stairway, and finally, finally, they gave up.
I live in The Sound, and sometimes I want that Sound to be Silence.
As a sound healer, my days are spent creating healing atmospheres of sound for my clients. It’s work that suits me perfectly, and I love it, but at the end of the day, ear fatigue is a real thing, and I am ready to not be hearing anything for a while. Fortunately, my partner totally understands and having been under headphones all day for his job, he feels the same way. We are frequently silent together. And that is wonderful. To have somebody you can sit with and not feel pressured to find something to talk about or to keep them occupied is a blessing most people can’t even imagine.
My best girl and I took a roadtrip together to Chicago a couple years ago, and spent a lot of time not talking without even really noticing we were doing it. When one of us, I can’t remember which one, said, “Oh, jeeze, sorry, I’m not being a very good conversationalist here,” the other promptly said, “Oh, I was just loving the comfortable silence.” And we smiled at each other and held hands for a few minutes, just savoring being in each others’ presence.
I have known people who cannot stand to be in a room alone without a television blaring, or a radio on. I married one; when I left he tried to get me to take a television with me, and I refused, saying, “Nope, I’ve had all of that shit I can take. They’re all yours.” Snarky? Possibly. But honest.
My theory is that it’s fear that makes them turn up the garbage. They don’t want to be alone with their own thoughts. They don’t want to listen to the sound of their own ideas. Most people have very little control over their thoughts, and tend to let them run rampant and roughshod over them. Leave them alone in a silent room for five minutes and they’ll be gibbering in a corner when you come back. They’ll start out innocently enough, reminding themselves about needing to pick up crimini mushrooms and asparagus at the market, and the next thing you know they’re freaking out about the cost of food and how they’re not making enough money and they don’t know how much longer they can hold on and what else can they possibly cut out of their budget in order to not lose their house because that’s where this thing is headed and the kids are going to be homeless drug addicted prostitutes by the time they’re in highschool because somebody’s got to pick up crimini mushrooms and goddam asparagus . . .
Sound familiar?
I’m so sorry. Because I have lived with someone who had this issue, I know how painful and terrifying it can be. If you don’t like yourself, it’s hard to be alone. If you have a lot of fear, it’s easy to let your worries get the better of you. If you live worst-case-scenario to worst-case-scenario, the last thing you need is to shut off the distractions that keep your brain from turning your life into Armageddon. But a surprising number of people have trouble with silence, because there are two kinds, and we don’t usually have enough silence in our lives to learn the difference.
There’s the “Ahh, it’s the end of the day and all is quiet and I can sit and relax and enjoy a few moments of pressureless peace;” and then there’s the calm-before-the-storm style of silence, where things go real quiet in order to lull you into a false sense of security so they can leap out from behind a door and say, “Gotcha!” The latter is the type of silence most of us are most familiar with, but the former, ah the former, is precious. Unfortunately, the world we have made rarely accommodates the former, even when there is nothing else going on. There are cars, trucks, siren-blasting emergency vehicles, airplanes, construction equipment . . . and even in our homes and neighborhoods there are more noises than we even notice, from the fridge that runs every goddam time you try to meditate, to the festival of lawnmowers every spring and summer weekend, to the neighborhood jackass with his mufflerless truck. My neighbor’s lovely children, Pogostick and Basketball, were out making a totally non-rhythmic ruckus this weekend, incessantly bouncing their respective out-of-time bounces until it nearly drove musician-me mad. That kind of a-rhythm can be nearly impossible to block out, and it’s pure hell to listen to. Point is, sometimes you can’t hear yourself think.
Silence is tragically underrated.
We need silence, to connect us to Spirit, and to connect us to our own divinity. It helps us slow down and simply be, without any expectations of productivity, accomplishment, busy-work or personal growth. Silence is a healing balm, but we have to make friends with it first if it’s a scary proposition. Expose yourself to silence a few moments at a time. Maybe turn off the radio in your car on your way home from work and just let yourself decompress. Or turn off the news and make a gratitude list instead. Spend those thirty minutes finding things to celebrate, things to feel good about, things to help you end the day on a joyful note instead of feeling depressed and overwhelmed. (Who’s stupid idea was it to broadcast doom-and-gloom for thirty minutes right before bedtime anyway?) Allow yourself to ease into silence gently, and see how it feels. Let the silence prove to you that it is a true companion and not your worst enemy. Let your joyful noise be a soft, contented sigh.