Silence

Silence.

Some people work with music, some in crowded spaces. Not me. I love, maybe even need, the absolute quiet of an empty house.

I wish it were not that way - it seems like life and work might be easier if I had a higher noise tolerance - but this morning when my girls had gone off to school, my husband to the city, and then the handyman didn’t come at 8:15 as promised, I exhaled. Between school, sports, work, and that missed appointment, I will have seven hours alone.

In silence I face myself. My own strange, meandering thoughts, doubts, dreams, and limitations. Sound is a distraction - the lyrics of a familiar song, the hum of the coffeeshop, the the drone of a reel watched on a phone nearby - and an interruption - doorbell, dog barking, the ding of a notification. In the first minutes of quiet, I long for a break from the discomfort, seek it out even, as I listen for a noise that might pull me away from myself.

I hear opportunity to stand and walk away from the desk - a car door slamming outside and the washing machine singing its happy song to let me know the cycle is finished.

But I focus on these words and on the sensory deprivation of this moment.

The world is too much with us, Wordsworth wrote, but we are also too much with the world, eagerly rushing to join with its noise and energy to avoid ourselves. I feel that way myself sometimes.

And then there are days like today. Quiet days. I bathe in silence. I let it wash the world away.

Photo by mali desha on Unsplash