More Silences

Been thinking a lot about silence again, lately.

I'm very comfortable with silence.  More than comfortable.  I need it.

I remember walking through the cold as a young man.  The collar on my second-hand wool coat was turned up because I wasn't sensible enough to own a scarf.  I'd walked twenty minutes through the woods from school, along the power lines that led towards my house.  It was a silent cold, with no wind; the cold lived in the still air and didn't need any help at all with being cold. 

It was cold enough that walking didn't warm me. 

Suddenly I thought, "This must be the temperature at which thoughts freeze."  My mind, which usually chattered away with observations and analyses, non-stop, walking or sitting or riding a bike or practicing the piano and pretty much always, my usually busy mind had been absolutely silent for those twenty minutes.  It was extraordinary, because there was no sound from the outside, either.  Absolute stillness, leaving behind a twenty minute vacuum in my narrative, walled off by the thin membrane of awareness of a lack.

And back then, this was a remarkable occurrence.  It terrified me, because my mind never stopped.  It was always too busy trying to be right about everything, back then.  Friends would say to me, "Don't you get tired of thinking all the time?"  And I'd wonder what the alternative was.

I'd just walked through it.  The alternative was very still and cold.

* * *

I've never liked television.  The sound of a TV completely shuts me down.  Put a picture to it and I can't notice anything else.  But language in general does this too.  Words coming in from anywhere--they don't leave room for anything else.  If they're not something I've chosen to submit to, they'll erase me.  No reading,  no writing, no thinking, while those words come in.  My mind becomes the machine's mind, when the machine is broadcasting.

Getting to my new job takes a 90 minute drive.  I don't mind it.  I was listening to those podcasts for a while--and I'd choose to do that anyway, so drive time becomes leasure time plus an excuse.  And if I got tired of stories I'd play indie rock or classical music.  It made for a pleasant hour and half, twice a day.

And then the cassette adapter that connects my mp3-capable cd player to my car stereo jammed and broke.  I went a couple days without buying a new one, and then decided I rather like the interior of the car better without all those wires snaking from the console to the passenger seat.

That leaves the radio.  So I'll listen to public radio once in a while, classical or jazz or news about stuff I wouldn't hear about otherwise.  I tried flipping through some of the other stations and wondered, how do people listen to "regular" radio?  There's so much chatter and advertising--even the stuff that isn't advertising is advertising.  I can't understand how people take that much advertising.  It's insulting and invasive.  It makes me violently angry.  I will not let it re-program me.

So it's public radio.  The signal only carries me halfway home, though.  My evenings fade out to static and silence, and my mornings begin with it.  Somewhere around exit four I can turn my radio on and make out the voices.

If I want to. 

For the last several days I've reached my destination without turning it on at all, and realized that I've just spent 90 minutes listening to nothing more than the purr of my engine, the click of my standard transmission when I shift it, the whisper-friction of my brakes when I apply them, the hum of the tires and the whistle of wind around the dented body of my Civic.  And I can't recall a single thought that troubled the emptiness of those 90 minutes.

It's a strange meditation to practice three hours a day, but I've been choosing it without choosing it.  And it feels pretty good.  It doesn't even feel as cold as that early one.  I know something must be going on during these spells.  I just don't know what it is. 

I guess I'll hear it when I'm ready to hear it.

Comments

[Rebecca]

You know that there are public radio stations on the cape now: capeandislands.org It's a group of like four lower powered channels so you may have to change once or twice to follow along.

And as for the wires, try an FM transmitter. They don't have the best clarity (some static, especially in the city), but it will give you options should the sound of silence suddenly seem too quiet.

As for tv... it's evil! I have to sometimes put a sign over mine saying just that so I don't turn it on. The off button doesn't seem to work....

[Nate]

Thanks for the tips! I'll check out those public radio stations--my "seek" button must have been skipping over them.

I've looked into the FM transmitters. The iPod ones are pretty expensive but I haven't checked to see if there are generic alternatives. It's got to sound better than the cassette thing--it seems to get overly magnetized and then the sound gets all distorted.

Do you play music on the scooter?

[Rebecca]

I have to get special speakers that go into the helmet. Headphones, like the little in ear buds, are illegal.

Belkin makes a generic FM transmitter. Show around walmart or similar. Compare product price in auto section versus electronics. Auto department may be cheaper (less impulsive foot traffic).

[Chili]

My father has been known to make the entire 600 mile drive between Massachusetts and Nova Scotia without even considering turning the radio on. His silence is quite different from yours. He chooses silence because it gives him a chance to do the thinking that the "commercial radio" of daily life prevents. While he drives he builds buildings in his head. When you get to know him you'll know that I don't mean this superficially. He has been known to arrive home from a 1200 mile round trip and sit down with a pencil and a straightedge and draw a COMPLETE SET OF CONSTRUCTION PLANS (including dimensions, cost estimates, architectural details, material specifications, etc.) from memory. This is how my parents have a house in Canada now... many quiet hours driving. This skill requires a level of concentration that I have not attained. Still, I need to listen to something all day during work just to keep my "personal brain" from intruding on my work.. It's as if I can't actually do the sort of boring, sort of interesting, but really not exactly what I want to do right now tasks without distracting myself from thinking about mountain bikes or maybe a future motorcycle or even a trip to New Mexico (all things I like to think about). Still, I ain't building no castles in my mind. Just bikes.

[Nate]

Wow Chili. I wish I could do that with my writing.