Silence is can be Golden and Noise can be Lead

[puppetmaker]

Today for a variety of reasons I have a day at the house by myself. Peter and Caroline are off to one of Ariel’s concerts and to meet-up with my sister-in-law and her two daughters. Fig is still a little too little to be left alone all day. She is getting bigger but still needs someone around to keep her out of trouble.

So it was really quiet here for a while. No one was doing lawn work. I could hear the birds and a couple of squirrels arguing over something. The cats were sleeping with the occasional pitter-patter of a kitten running at full tilt. I was relaxing in the quiet when the noise started with an oversized rig coming up the street with a large boat. Since then I have had leaf blowers, mowers, and other mechanical sounds as the weekend warriors work on their lawns and houses. I figure it will quiet down about the time that football comes on.

I found at an early age that I did like the quiet of nature, which isn’t really that quiet. There is just something about being able to hear birdsong, the breeze going through the trees, or the sound of water wearing out the land that has grounded me and my thoughts. After I opened a show I had a ritual that I would go somewhere quiet for a long walk to let go off all the pressure I had been under and flip my brain from rehearsal to running a show. This can be harder to do on an Island but it is amazing the amount of park space there is out here. Also the place I live is pretty quiet for the most part. So I continue to take sometime to enjoy the lack of industrial sound.

But there are times I need noise to focus me. It can be too quiet and my brain can scatter all over the place. I use either music or the TV to bring me back to a point where I can focus on one thing. I like giving my brain time to roam but it can be hard to pull it back to where I need it. Yeah, I know I’m weird but I have gotten use to that.

I have an opportunity that dropped in my lap that I need to think about today. I think I know what I can do for my pitch but it is going in a couple of directions. Now I need to find a few more of these to get something rolling the direction I need it to roll.

Then I start to think about all the other things I need to or want to do and the noise in my brain increases to a crescendo of thoughts and feelings that overwhelm me. I think I need to go back to making lists to clear my head. It worked for me while I was a stage manager and as a book editor so it should work for me now. I think.

But for now I think I am going to wait for the quiet to return and take what’s left of my coffee to the back porch and listen to nature for a bit and let my mind run free.

I am grateful for both the quiet and the noise in my life.

Comments

[chris-walsh.livejournal.com]

I found at an early age that I did like the quiet of nature, which isn’t really that quiet. There is just something about being able to hear birdsong, the breeze going through the trees, or the sound of water wearing out the land that has grounded me and my thoughts. After I opened a show I had a ritual that I would go somewhere quiet for a long walk to let go off all the pressure I had been under and flip my brain from rehearsal to running a show.

I've used that. In spring 1999 I was going from a really busy week at my newspaper job in Northeastern Oregon to my brother's(1) wedding in Philadelphia, and I felt the need to re-set my head. I was flying out via Portland, so I drove first to Portland and then kept driving until I got to the Coast, just over an hour further down the road. Stood looking at and listening to the Pacific for a bit before heading back flying out. Breathed different air, listened to different noise, and felt more prepared for the trip and the wedding. Which was a really good one (and resulted in a really good marriage for him).

(The bachelor party was in Atlantic City, so what I wish I'd also done was get out for a bit and stand on the Atlantic coast, too. I'd've been at two oceans, 3,000 miles apart, in only a couple of days, and that appealed to my sense of symmetry. Still. Oceans calm me.)

(1) My brother's T.J., and by the way he was who introduced me to Peter's work.

[imafarmgirl.livejournal.com]

It drives me nuts when all the lawn mowers and things are going at once.

[edith-jones.livejournal.com]

I love the sound of lawn mowers. The quiet of nature is wonderful and I get a lot of it here in the small town where I live, especially at 4 a.m. when all the birds in the golden maple outside my window wake up. But lawn mowers....they sound like Saturday afternoons or weekday evenings as a child and I can remember my dad mowing the lawn and weeding the garden and I get all chilled out.

Leaf blowers are another thing and should be exterminated. I'm glad you had a good day and I wish you much luck with the project that's fallen to you, and whatever you decide to do with it.