Tag Archives: stillness

Early morning quiet

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Silence is different at different times of day. Early morning quiet is especially unique. Before the sun rises, before most people awake, there is a stillness to the day. Before the planning begins, before the morning routine, the quiet is calm, serene. There is a chill in the air, but it’s crisp rather than cold.

Early morning quiet is not a true silence, even as I write this the furnace is blowing warm air, yet there is a stillness. A single car drives by the window, yet it was in solitude and not in traffic. I can see the empty road it drives on, feel the wait of the nearby traffic light, too long of a wait with no traffic passing the other way.

The early morning quiet is a feeling, it is a solemn emotion more than a lack of sound. It is a moment of solitude, where time seems to slow. It is the stillness of a day not yet discovered.

Missing silence

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There are two things that make me feel old. One is my back, it aches in the morning and reminds me that I’m not young. It cautions me not to do any physical activities without warming up. It feels older than I feel. The other thing that makes me feel old is my hearing. First of all, I don’t have the range I used to, for example, I can’t hear the tones my fireplace makes when it is turned on and off. I can stand right by it, with my ear almost against it and I hear nothing to the surprise of my wife and daughter who ask, “How can you not hear that?”

But this is something I’m actually ignorant to, other than when I’m told to lower the TV. Although subtitles are always on for me, so I often don’t realize how much I rely on them compared to not having them and struggling. What really makes me feel old with respect to my hearing is my tinnitus, a constant tone that I hear all the time. Most days I can ignore it for long parts of the day. It sort of disappears and the sounds of activity around me drown it out. But when it’s quiet, like right now when everyone is in bed and it’s just me up clicking away on a laptop, this is when it really bugs me.

I don’t get to experience silence anymore. I miss it.

I miss it now, in the morning quiet of the house. I miss it at night when I’m trying to fall asleep. I miss it after a snowfall and the snow muffles all other sounds. I miss it when I’m trying to meditate and it distracts me and becomes the focus of my attention.

We don’t often appreciate what we have until we miss it. I miss silence.

The sound of silence

The sound of silence is a feeling, a stillness, rather than just a quiet. I have tinnitus and so I hear a tone, even when there are no other sounds. I’m in my living room and can hear the fridge. I hear a distant lawnmower, and the occasional car going by. But the house is quiet.

I remember a trip with my dad to southern Nevada, we split apart in a wooded area, it was close to noon and very hot. There was no wind and no sound, too hot even for bugs I guess. That was a real silence. I’ve heard that a few times at night in winter as well. Snow seems to absorb sound. I can remember going for a walk once in the snow and pausing after realizing my footsteps were the only sound being made. I stopped and heard a deafening silence, a void of any noise, and again it was a feeling more than just a lack of sound.

In our busy lives we sometimes forget to be still, to be quiet, to let silence happen. People leave the TV on for company, listen to music, even whistle a tune. I listen to books or podcasts. We fill the void of silence rather than let it envelope us. But sometimes, sometimes the opportunity for silence should be sought after, seized, for the sake of just feeling silence. Not just hearing it, feeling it. It’s not easy to find, my ear tones on, the fridge hums, a car goes by… but when I find it, my body knows.

The sound of silence is a feeling, not a sound.