Swallowed up in Silence

Sirens wailing. Leaf blowers roaring. Endless honking. Tree trimmer trucks. Jackhammers. Lawn mowers. The beep-beep-beep of Amazon vans backing up. All during five minutes of meditation. Can you believe it?

No wonder people in our cities walk around with earbuds shoved in their heads. There’s a lot to drown out. And a lot we’re missing out on.

Earlier today, I walked around my historic neighborhood without those little white stumps. (That’s right: extra exposed to the elements!) I’d just stopped at one of those cute free little libraries to browse some books when movement caught my eye.

I hadn’t noticed her at first, a woman with streaks of pink and teal in her long salt and pepper hair. Beside her was a tail-wagging beagle.

He seemed fearless running toward me on the other side of the gate. Then he immediately darted back up the stairs to the porch. “He’s scared of the sound of the mail truck,” his human explained.“Because he was a lab dog.”

“A what? He’s part lab?”

“No, I mean he lived his entire first year in a research lab. Had never been outside until I adopted him.” Never seen the sky. Never heard the world buzzing by. Never sniffed grass. She told me she hadn’t noticed just how many sounds this place was filled with until she started to see it all through his eyes (and ears). Their time on the porch every morning was part of a new-ish routine they were starting to settle into since she was freshly retired.

I skedaddled back to a porch recently, too. A big, sprawling one dating back to the pre-Civil War era. The place, literally named The Porches for such reasons, swallowed me up for the second time this year. I travel there solo to write and get away. I leave a truer version of myself. Connected to wisdom and reminders of why spontaneous, in-person connection is a gem we can’t afford to drown out and lose. And how silence and uninterrupted time to listen shouldn’t be a luxury.

The Porches is a place where writers of any kind are welcomed and encouraged to savor a break and tap into their creativity. Basically, an antidote to no-time-to-do-anything-with-my-full-attention-because-I’m-rushing-into-five-things-at-once. To the lack of talk with strangers in line at the store. To the stories and voices we often can’t hear above the noise.

There in the middle of the Virginia countryside, after plenty of quiet hours to stream out my thoughts, I sink into intimate dinner conversations over a round wooden table with people I’ve never met. Women have traveled from Chicago and Georgia and corners of Virginia to create and make space for deep breathing. We belly laugh about quirky, made up phrases and our eyes widen at the wisdom and audacity each of us bring to this common ground. The last morning, I’m so enthralled by this return to bliss that I forget to fill the stovetop coffee maker with its water, alerted by the smell of burning metal. (“Put that in your blog!” my new friend says.)

I learn more about these women during three and four and five hours of impromptu talking—of listening— than years of life in a high rise.

Our faces are illuminated by a bonfire in the side garden next to a table of potted herbs. “People used to sit around the fire and tell stories, you know” our host says. I think back to when storytelling around fires originally served as more than entertainment. It was a survival mechanism: wisdom passed down about how to effectively live.

We eventually fall into that rhythm, accompanied by long pauses. I have to stop myself from filling them all in a knee jerk reaction because so much of me is still tethered to the thought of awkward silence being uncomfortable and risky. But another part of me is so relieved when I realize it’s not on me to fill the void. Because in stretches of silence is where magic lies, too. It’s so easy to forget.

Sometimes I wonder, why is it that most folks I end up stopping to connect with on a whim happen to be older than me? Is it because I am falling into (or craving) some antiquated, old-fashioned way of life? Will it all soon be gone?

That life is one I’m determined to preserve and nourish with my hundred-year-old soul. I promise to feed her vitamins, which I’m now convinced are harvested from centuries-old wide wooden porches.

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