Reflection

This morning I woke up in my bedroom to absolute silence. My bedroom is tucked away from the main road so luckily I am spared the noise of traffic as it drives over the speed bumps and I am buffeted from the sounds of passers by but I am normally woken by the alarm on my phone (a calming gong, in as much as a gong can be calming) which wakes me up without dragging me unceremoniously from my sleep. This morning my gong was silent. Usually before the gong sounds I am often woken by birdsong or by the cat meowing for her breakfast. This morning all the birds must have flown somewhere warmer and the cat was silent too, snuggled up fast asleep with the lazy dog. In the summer, when my windows are open wide I can usually hear the sounds of the street getting ready for a new day. Even at my early hour of rising the sound of distant traffic and the odd aeroplane are reminders that I am not alone in this world. If I am starting work later than usual and have had the chance to stay in bed until around 8 o’clock I hear children on their way to school, cars starting up in the car park and, on Tuesdays, the bleep bleep bleep of the reversing rubbish truck. Yet there is something very special about experiencing silence in a huge city like London. I am sure that non city people mistakenly think that we metropolitans live in a world of noise pollution.

This morning with the double glazed windows shut tightly against the cold winds and sounds of the outside world I could only hear silence.

Intrusive noise must be absolute hell to live with. Having neighbours who blast out music day and night, who slam doors and shout and scream at each other must fray the nerves and make you crave peace and quiet. In fact peace and quiet must suddenly become a luxury that is out of your grasp. Parents with a baby who constantly cries must bury their heads in pillows and sob, desperate for the crying to stop so they can get some sleep. Yesterday I met a parent of a constant crier and she said 'All I want is for her to stop. I can't even think anymore'. This was shortly after I met another parent who lives on the 6th floor of a tower block with a child with Autism. Not only does he demand 24 hour attention (and his means of communication is to bang things) but the bedroom they share is next to the lift shaft and even without his sensory needs the constant noise of the lift disturbs their sleep and, let me tell you Messirs C&C, their happiness quota is pretty low. For both these parents 5 minutes of silence would be golden. Sufferers of Tinnitus too must be an unhappy lot. This is something I have always dreaded happening to me as living with a constant buzz in my head would drive me insane.

Yet knowing all this still the silence this morning worried me. It was so total that I felt scared. Alone. Often I want silence so I can think clearly or even meditate. Sometimes I have to mask the sounds that are out there with other sounds so that I can think, for instance when I am in the car. I do a lot of thinking in the car, not in silence, but by covering up the external sounds by sounds of my own choosing, the music I listen to whenever I have the chance. How lucky am I to have the choice? How stupid am I to fear 5 minutes of complete silence? I should thank my lucky stars.

The opportunity to spend some of our day in silent reflection is our right. Silence allows us to reflect. Yet most of us fear silence, even gaps in conversation are something to be filled, usually with careless, meaningless words. Reflection is a something that most of us don’t do enough and it is a priceless tool. However to do it justice it is best carried out in silence. With the windows closed.


Be Still – For Now


If we lived in a world of silence


Exactly what would we hear?


Just our beating heart and gentle pulse?


Or would our thoughts drive us insane with their sudden


Clarity?

Perhaps our touch would become too intense


With a sensitivity that is impossible to manage


As we become familiar with the person within?


Or would we crave an internal intimacy that


Engulfs?


Would we would crave for sounds that mask


The sometimes scary space that silence has created?


Or would we start to hear the things that matter


Would we finally understand that we sometimes need to be


Still?