A Moment of Sound

The strangest thing about living alone is that no one ever says anything.

I don’t think about it often, but when I do it always comes as a surprise. On an average day I’ll be home from class by 7:00, and be in bed at 2:00 at the earliest. Unless I go out for dinner or coffee, need to meet someone in the lab, or get a phone call from home, I most likely won’t utter a single word. At first that seems too obvious to point out; the alternative, that I sit around talking to myself all night, would be disturbing. But how many times in my life, prior to now, have I been able to say that I spent 7 solid, waking hours, without making a sound?

Take last weekend. From Friday to Sunday evening, I didn’t leave my apartment. That’s 48 hours of almost unbroken silence on my part. Imagine, for a second, if a video camera had been placed in my living room. You would see a quite shaggy, unshowered college student, sitting in a chair. He’s staring intently at a screen, alternating between typing and clicking, typing and clicking. You hear the backround noise (a TV which has been on almost the entire weekend, partygoers screaming next door, etc.), but from our sole mic’ed character not a single word. This goes on for hours. Tap tap tap, click, tap tap tap, click, aaaand Rivers tries to connect with Antonio Gates but OH! he just, tap tap tap, click, tap tap tap, click, looks like it’s going to be  ruled an incompletion, tap tap tap, click…

Then, after about 12 hours, you hear the sound of a phone vibrating. It’s his friend Beth, calling to say she’s sorry he couldn’t make it to the Halloween party. After about four vibration triplets (three consecutive vibrations, followed by a second-long pause), the protagonist picks up the phone and flips it open. He holds it to his ear. Tension builds as you see his expression. His mouth begins to open. Through the impenetrably dense fog of white noise surrounding him, comes a loud, jarring “Hello?”

Seriously. It’s very off-putting to realize how long I can go without speaking. Sometimes it’ll be so long, that once I am finally required to say something — a phone is ringing, the cashier is ready to take my order, or I’ve sat down in the back of a lecture and the friend next to me says “Hi,” — I wonder if I’ll even remember how. Volume and pitch control are clearly gone. Do I need to clear my throat? I won’t know until I try. What comes out starts as an awkward croak, before it all comes flooding back to me, and I can proceed as usual.

To compensate for the silence, I hide behind entertainment. From the time I come home until the time I go to bed, the TV is usually on. Half the time I’m not watching it — my research laptop, where I do most of my work these days, isn’t even facing it! It’ll usually be on a network that requires no thought to watch, like ESPN or the Food Network. Just a little white noise, giving me the familiar comfort of a human voice to keep my sanity despite the ever-growing workload. It’s particularly comforting to fall asleep in front of it — I’ve always thought so, anyway. A bit jarring when you wake up 15 minutes later and have no idea where you are or who you’re talking to, but oddly peaceful just the same. When I’m sick of TV, music is always there to fill the void.

But on occasion, like tonight, I turn off the TV, mute the speakers, and just sit. Usually out here on the balcony. And right now, at any rate, something about the sound feels…well…beautiful. It sounds cliched, and I really can’t explain why; when I’m alone it’s just easy to be swept up in random, unfounded emotion. Like when I’m walking home from the lab at night and find myself struck by an extreme feeling that I can only describe as melancholy — not sadness and not happiness, but something distinctly comforting and very quiet. Right now I’m surrounded, largely, by the wall of noise created by the chilly bay breeze, mingled with the sound of distant traffic…I can’t pick out where one ends and the other begins. Beyond that wall, a single bird is letting out a steady, high-pitched chirp. Further still is the occasional sound of lone footsteps passing by my building.

That’s it. Nothing is being spoken, no melody is being played. Nothing is even particularly memorable. But I think that’s what’s so peaceful and (yes, I’ll bring myself to say it again) beautiful to me. It’s the sound of a world entirely outside of myself, which has been playing out here while I sat with the TV blaring, and will continue once I go back inside to sleep. In there the hours will fly by. Out here, time seems to stand still. Every minute feels like an eternity. And I wonder, if I were to spend the entire night sitting out here, how many lifetimes of solitude I could live in that otherwise instant spent sleeping before the sun comes up. Brewing a pot of coffee, closing the laptop, sitting back, and just existing.

Of course, I won’t. I have class in the morning, and I really couldn’t justify “I wanted to sit on the balcony and do nothing” as an excuse. But just knowing that I could, like knowing every time I step in a car that I could drive all the way to Escondido, gives me inexplicable comfort. It’s unreasonable, and it’s nearly impossible to transpose the mood into something concrete. But somehow moments like this make me realize: I am very, very happy with my life.

Advertisement