Silence.

What happened to it? I don't think it is something you hear everyday, anymore. And I don't mean the "get away from it all and sit on a beach somewhere" sort of silence. I mean real, honest-to-goodness, can-only-hear-my-breathing, silence.

In today's world, everything is so rushed, so loud, especially in America. When I was in Europe, I could spot touring Americans immediately, because they spoke so loudly in public. Not to say that Europeans do not...because they're approaching that point. But in my experience, I still remember the quietness of restaurants, how you could not hear every word if someone happened to be on their cell phone. It's an interesting difference...but the loud cell phone chatter, public conversations, and loud iPod music is not what I am referring to.

When I wake up, it's to my radio, where the NPR voices are catching me up on world and local news. Outside, I hear dogs and the trains near my apartment, car doors and front doors slamming shut, the jangle of keys, cars and trucks coming/going. Occasionally I hear the big diesel engine of my downstairs neighbor roar to life, then chug away. Sometimes I hear conversations or loud music during the day, or the clink of beer bottles between friends. All of this noise, and I realize that even my quiet times are not like the quiet I imagine they were one day, back in the past. The distant past, probably, because for as long as I can remember, my life was filled with constant stimulation and noise; I wonder if my brain ever gets tired of it?

But my point was....think back to the last time you considered 'quiet' in your life. Where were you? A funeral home? The beach? Your room, in bed? I found that I can induce mostly pure silence, with very good foam earplugs and no light. Then I hear my own pulse and the beating of my heart. I can hear the crackle of my ears when I swallow or stretch my jaw muscles. It seems so much louder then, though, when it's quiet. I still consider this to be somewhat artificial silence, though, as it is induced via earplugs, and there is still noise.

This brings me to another thought. Our bodies make so many noises in and of themselves, it amazes me. Did you know that your muscles actually make noise when they contract and release? Most people just qualify it with "our ears can't hear it". Not true! It is simply that our ears "drown out" (for lack of a better way to explain it here) the noise from the blood moving through our ears and head, the sounds our muscles make when the neurons communicate with one another to force a contraction or relaxation, etc. One of my favorite things, is to realize that sound doesn't have to be through the actual ear. Anyone with hearing aids or who knows someone with hearing aids probably know this, but some people can still 'hear' through the bones in their skull. Particularly, if you take a tuning fork (or something like it that conducts sound in a similar way) you can either rest the end of it against the bone right behind your ear, or rest the same end (the end so as not to stop the vibrating) on the very top of your head, in the very center. You'll hear it! Interesting how noisy our bodies can be, and how adaptive they are to sound, eh?

Well, you might not think so, but again, I'm a pre-med major, so you'll have to forgive me on that one :-) But, back to my point....there have only been a few spare moments when I noticed silence. Usually it was when all electricity is cut out due to a storm or something similar. All of the sudden, all of the noise and stimulation around you just...stops. You've probably experienced it, and rushed to find out what was going on...tried to find a flashlight or a candle. Next time, I suggest that at least just for a second (unless there is some very pressing matter to attend to) you take a moment to enjoy it.

The only other time that I have felt a similar sort of enveloping peace is in the water. I developed a fear of water, of jumping in to water, when I was forced through a certain water class...not intentional, really, but it happened. It wasn't until I was a camp counselor this summer and was pushed into the lake that I got over it. An action completely in good fun, but I remember being terrified and angry as I fell and hit the water. Then, it just stopped. I floundered for a second, then stopped as the feeling of the water around me reached to my brain through my senses. I'm not a bad swimmer, in fact, I'm an expert swimmer, and I really did love it, until that class. This past summer, I was at the lake because our kids were learning to scuba dive, and since I had the most medical training (and at the time I wasn't a big fan of the water) I volunteered to stay on land in case anyone got into trouble. I was an expert swimmer, a trained rescuer, I could conceivably help someone in trouble.

So that sense of peace returned, even though the water was a very noisy place. Over the course of that week we were down at the lake, I used my friend's snorkel, goggles and fins to go exploring. I snorkeled all along the shore and into the deeper water, my bonds of fear completely broken after that shove in the lake by some of my mischievous campers. Several of them started joining me, in exploring. Several times when we dipped below the surface to check out some fish, I again felt this sense of peace around me.

What does this have to do with silence? Well, I found some sort of...irony in it. The water is anything BUT silent, since sound travels something like three times faster in water, but the feeling of being completely surrounded in water gave a similar experience to being completely surrounded in silence. The silence where I think someone might hear my thoughts if I think too loudly (obviously, not true). Still, the sense of peace was pretty amazing, and ever since then I love getting in the pool…but only to an extent. Since it’s at the recreation center on campus, it is usually very loud. I long for the peace I found in that clear (yes, it was clear) lake water. Especially when we went for a night snorkel, where all you could hear was your own breathing through the snorkel, amplified. It was phenomenal.

Despite improving measures to correct it, I wonder if hearing in people…in adults…is worse today than it was back then? I wonder if the kids and tweens and teens of today will have even worse hearing thanks to blaring their music through headphones (bad idea, by the way, if you do that). We seem to try to fill our lives with all this noise, all this stimulation…I have to wonder, if we’re trying to fill it because we lack that sense of peace?

I loved being in the water when it was just me, my breathing, and the feeling of the water against me as I float toward the time and resist it by swimming downward. How my long hair felt free in the water as it floated around me.

I want to be in space…to experience the stillness. On the International Space Station and on Mir, there is great concern as to the hearing of the astronauts and cosmonauts, because they are around machines that are on, all the time. Can you just imagine, for a moment, what the stillness and greatness would be like, to be quiet, floating in space, the Earth right outside your window? Even though it is obviously NOT that quiet on the space station, or the space shuttle, or the Soyuz capsule….I have to wonder what it would be like.

….I guess that is why they called (call) it “Tranquility Base”….

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