I've been working from home for almost three weeks, and self isolating for a week and a half, and I've been thinking of ways to talk about the changes in life which have come with this strange existence we are all muddling through at the moment. It is the quiet which has really resonated.
I was sitting in bed one evening this week - well enough to read, but ill enough to make sitting anywhere but bed impossisble. It was around 8, and the light in an opposite house turned out, leaving the window I looked out of completely black. I had no music on, so the only sounds were my, and my partner's, breathing, and the rhythmic shush of a page as it was turned over.
Of course, I am in a household of two, with no children to permeate a silence I make for myself, but it really did strike me how peaceful it was. We could have been in the middle of the countryside, rather than near a busy road, which is usually used as a busy thoroughfare, leading to another very busy road.
Now, whilst writing this, I have music playing through my laptop, but if I were to turn it off a moment .... silence. Only the hum of my laptop reminds me of the modern age I'm living in. There are no children playing in the street (a stupid thing to be doing in this day and age, but if I were to suspend disbelief and imagine myself transported back 100 years or so, I'm fairly certain they would be. It's glorious outside, but no one is stiring. Not the case everywhere, I grant you. There are Covidiots going for a sunbathe in parks all over the place. But even they are hushed by this peace which has descended. And it can't be easy being enclosed in a small flat with no balcony or space to stand outside when the weather is making such siren calls.
Back to the quiet .... I read a book by Sara Maitland many years ago called 'A Book of Silence'. It's a fascinating exploration of noise and its limits. Where do we go to be quiet, and is it ever really actually silent. Even in the middle of the Sinai desert, there is still some sound, even if it's just our blood thrumming, suddenly loud. I must go back to it, now that I find myself in this state of insular contemplation. I am on leave this coming week, although my partner is not, and will no doubt spend much of the week on my own downstairs as she works. I will likely fill the silence with television, drowning in a plethora of shows which have nothing to do with the quiet or social distancing. It will give me something to talk about in group Zoom chats. I have noticed the silences in these, as friends reach out to make contact and then find they might not have that much to say.
I find myself wondering a lot about what will come out of this period - an understanding of silence, proper silence, and the way to use it might be one positive.
I was sitting in bed one evening this week - well enough to read, but ill enough to make sitting anywhere but bed impossisble. It was around 8, and the light in an opposite house turned out, leaving the window I looked out of completely black. I had no music on, so the only sounds were my, and my partner's, breathing, and the rhythmic shush of a page as it was turned over.
Of course, I am in a household of two, with no children to permeate a silence I make for myself, but it really did strike me how peaceful it was. We could have been in the middle of the countryside, rather than near a busy road, which is usually used as a busy thoroughfare, leading to another very busy road.
Now, whilst writing this, I have music playing through my laptop, but if I were to turn it off a moment .... silence. Only the hum of my laptop reminds me of the modern age I'm living in. There are no children playing in the street (a stupid thing to be doing in this day and age, but if I were to suspend disbelief and imagine myself transported back 100 years or so, I'm fairly certain they would be. It's glorious outside, but no one is stiring. Not the case everywhere, I grant you. There are Covidiots going for a sunbathe in parks all over the place. But even they are hushed by this peace which has descended. And it can't be easy being enclosed in a small flat with no balcony or space to stand outside when the weather is making such siren calls.
Back to the quiet .... I read a book by Sara Maitland many years ago called 'A Book of Silence'. It's a fascinating exploration of noise and its limits. Where do we go to be quiet, and is it ever really actually silent. Even in the middle of the Sinai desert, there is still some sound, even if it's just our blood thrumming, suddenly loud. I must go back to it, now that I find myself in this state of insular contemplation. I am on leave this coming week, although my partner is not, and will no doubt spend much of the week on my own downstairs as she works. I will likely fill the silence with television, drowning in a plethora of shows which have nothing to do with the quiet or social distancing. It will give me something to talk about in group Zoom chats. I have noticed the silences in these, as friends reach out to make contact and then find they might not have that much to say.
I find myself wondering a lot about what will come out of this period - an understanding of silence, proper silence, and the way to use it might be one positive.
