Listen. Can you smell that?
There comes a time almost every afternoon around 3:30pm when I'm at work and the office almost always quiets down. Nobody's conversing on the phone or in person, all the office doors or shut, I and the other assistants are in our cubicles quietly typing and minding our own beeswax. It's very pleasant, and I feel like I get a lot done in the hour surrounding this quiet time.
Then the weirdest thing happens, and it surprises me every time. The fan on the behemoth printer behind me shuts off. And every day, it's only then that I realize how loud the fan is. It wasn't at all quiet before, I'd been fooled. But *now* it's super-duper quiet. I love this moment, and I hope I continue to forget about it and be surprised anew daily. I actually have a tangible physical reaction to it - my shoulders relax, my face muscles relax, I unconsciously take a cleansing breath, my brain calms for a moment.
It makes me wonder how much noise falls beneath my conscious radar every day. Because your mind can't possibly take in and process that much "static" - it would surely drive you mad(der than you are), right? But our physiological selves must be constantly affected; taking the exhausting sonic blows all day long so that our minds can function. Printer fans, air conditioning/heat fans, refrigerators running (ha ha), computers humming, constant traffic, construction, not to mention plain ol' electricity running through everything.
I had a friend - a young women I toured with - who was TERRIFIED of nights “in the country.” She'd grown up in LA, and lived there pretty much her whole life until she moved to Seattle. When we’d stay in a homestay off the beaten path, she’d take a sleeping aid and go to bed early. She hated the fact that there was no noise (of course, there was plenty of sound, just no noise), and that it was so dark that you could see the full force of the inky sky. Freaked her the fuck out. I could never (will never) grok this. I mean, I understand it intellectually; I appreciated that that was her deal, and I never thought she was stupid or anything. But to me, it seemed like such an alien thing to feel.
I can't remember the last time my body heard natural silence. Or felt natural darkness. Has it been long enough that I will be frightened by it? I dearly hope it hasn't been that long, but just long enough for me to be thrilled by it. I plan on experiencing it a lot this summer on my camping roadtrip, so I'll let you know how it goes.
Then the weirdest thing happens, and it surprises me every time. The fan on the behemoth printer behind me shuts off. And every day, it's only then that I realize how loud the fan is. It wasn't at all quiet before, I'd been fooled. But *now* it's super-duper quiet. I love this moment, and I hope I continue to forget about it and be surprised anew daily. I actually have a tangible physical reaction to it - my shoulders relax, my face muscles relax, I unconsciously take a cleansing breath, my brain calms for a moment.
It makes me wonder how much noise falls beneath my conscious radar every day. Because your mind can't possibly take in and process that much "static" - it would surely drive you mad(der than you are), right? But our physiological selves must be constantly affected; taking the exhausting sonic blows all day long so that our minds can function. Printer fans, air conditioning/heat fans, refrigerators running (ha ha), computers humming, constant traffic, construction, not to mention plain ol' electricity running through everything.
I had a friend - a young women I toured with - who was TERRIFIED of nights “in the country.” She'd grown up in LA, and lived there pretty much her whole life until she moved to Seattle. When we’d stay in a homestay off the beaten path, she’d take a sleeping aid and go to bed early. She hated the fact that there was no noise (of course, there was plenty of sound, just no noise), and that it was so dark that you could see the full force of the inky sky. Freaked her the fuck out. I could never (will never) grok this. I mean, I understand it intellectually; I appreciated that that was her deal, and I never thought she was stupid or anything. But to me, it seemed like such an alien thing to feel.
I can't remember the last time my body heard natural silence. Or felt natural darkness. Has it been long enough that I will be frightened by it? I dearly hope it hasn't been that long, but just long enough for me to be thrilled by it. I plan on experiencing it a lot this summer on my camping roadtrip, so I'll let you know how it goes.
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