Quiet

A love letter (?) to silence

There are few things in life I enjoy as much as being silent. Listening, paying attention, noticing the world as it moves at its own arbitrary pace without my participation. The branches are swaying above my head, and all I have to do is hear the wind slightly disturbing the leaves. I see familiar starlings talking in countless dialects, distinct in each neighborhood of the city. The smells follow their people around, adding to the ambient noise of the morning air. The sun stretches its fingers to touch the tops of the mountains, my hair, our dog’s nose—boop, boop, boop. My husband is talking to me, but really to himself, following in his monologue the structure of thesis, argument, conclusion, coming back to the counter argument, being distracted by something remotely related by association. I nod, mumble in acknowledgement, and just listen.

Sometimes the sounds are overwhelming. The cars are too loud, the air is too dusty, the people passing by are too excited. I wince and make a puckered face, and we try to outrun them by sticking to each other’s side like two pieces of Kit Kat and moving our feet in sync. Sometimes the escape is so successful that we find ourselves walking through the smaller and darker streets that are made invisible to the rest of the city by thick tree trunks and unkempt flower pots. I can hear our sweatpants and t-shirts swishing from the movement and our sneakers rubbing the pebbles in the pavement, heel to toe.

One of the things that my husband and I instantly connected over is talking quietly—it’s in our culture. We are raised to talk in lower volumes around our elders, we are reprimanded for shouting and crying in public. We are taught to be polite—and being loud is a gross violation of that rule. The voices are rarely raised, no matter the environment or occasion. Having a conversation in a busy cafe is often a task of coordination between catching the chopped strings of sound and deciphering the movements of lips. Sometimes the topic wanders away, and then it’s “I thought you said…” and laughter.

To me, talking to people quietly feels intimate. Our voices are natural and relaxed, our attention undivided. Walking in an empty grocery store, the cashier greets me in almost a whisper, and I think of them as a friend, and respond with the same peacefulness and warmth. “Do you want a bag?” they ask slightly louder, but never in full volume. Shaking my head is enough. No small talk, just two strangers interacting in a familiar hushed manner that feels secretive and innate, the noises of car engines outside more distinct than our words.

I remember being 11 years old, still an only child, lying on the pink carpeted floor of my room in a house that is too big for my mom and me. She is away, or hiding somewhere upstairs, and I am alone, flat on my back, eyes wide open, deliberately frozen in movement and thought. I am listening to the ticking of a big round clock hanging on the pink wall, and counting the seconds. An hour passes. The house doesn’t make a sound.

I remember being slightly older and looking after my new baby brothers. They are whiny and pugnacious, and my mom doesn’t always have the nerve to handle them. She explodes, punishes, demands silence. We enjoy the reprieve independently—her with a cup of tea, me with a book. By that time in my life, I know the lesson too well. So well, in fact, that it transforms from something learned the hard way to what is now a part of myself: the older I get, the less repellent I become to the idea of restraining my emotions and calming down—first in behavior, then in consciousness.

Even after all those years and no matter how hard I try, I never seem to master the craft of suppressing the noise that seeps into my brain from outside, like the sand. At work, I cringe when colleagues talk loudly during meetings and change my seat to move away from them. I often find hyperactive people disturbing, and their quick gestures and piercing voices frighten me. I run from the confrontations because I can’t handle the clamor of facts, emotions, and heightened tones. Sometimes I catch myself thinking too loudly, and I try to run from that, too.

I feel the worst when the noise transcends the sound and everything around me becomes loud by simply existing. Everything in the world is in a constant chaotic motion, and the air itself is unable to break from an eternal cycle of unstoppable energy. The light feels polluted and almost sticky with dirt. The individual cells of my body become billions of pieces of dust and move in a dense self-contained tornado. I want to close my eyes and pack the surrounding world in an air-tight container. I want to see and hear nothing, I want the darkness to become synonymous with silence.

I appreciate the absence of noise the most when it comes from within myself. My head and body are quiet, my eyes are relaxed, my senses are unobstructed. I can stand still without fidgeting or look at something without needing distraction. The world doesn’t bother me when I am calm and at peace with myself—it is what I cherish and protect the most, this inner silence. At moments like this, I enjoy the sunshine that makes me squint, contextless pieces of conversations that I overhear from people passing by, a fragrant mix of lilacs and fast food teasing my nose for a couple of seconds only to be lost forever. It is quiet, and I am quiet with it.