It's Quiet...Too Quiet

Shhh! Do you smell that?

Once upon a time, I set my alarm for 5 AM so I could go down three flights of stairs to the basement of our home, where my computer sat on a table against an unfinished concrete wall, and try to write for sixty minutes, before I had to eat, shower, and drive to work. I had read somewhere that the early morning was the best time to write, and who was I to argue?

The actual basement in question

In those wee hours, it was quiet. Our house, at the time, was relatively new construction so we didn’t have the creaks and cricks of settling timbers. Carpet had been installed throughout to dampen any footfalls. A tri-level also helps muffle any sounds from upstairs activity. Thus, the basement felt like a cocoon.

On the good days, the world would dissolve away from the periphery of my vision and my imagination would wrestle the words from my foggy brain to thrust them onto (digital) paper. On the bad days, I’d stare at the blinking cursor on a blank page, unable to do anything except listen.

See, the thing is, even quiet isn’t exactly quiet. Do you know what I mean? There are all the minutiae of sub-sounds permeating the air, which we identify as “quiet”.

For instance, during the cooler months, the heat would be turned up so the furnace might kick on at any given moment to perform its function. Part of that process was the ignition of flame, which began with a disgruntled “hmmmph!”, followed by an exhalation of gas and then the click-click-click of some internal glow-stick that was expected to magically produce fire inside the contraption.

Often, however, the dang thing couldn’t catch properly. It had something to do with air flow being constricted because build-up over time had sealed up a hole, which I had to ream on the reg with a paper clip…despite this being a fairly new furnace. Until such a time as I deemed a reaming necessary, that poor ignition switch would try and try and try, until the safety sensor decided, “Hey, I better stop all this nonsense before the occupants all die of asphyxiation!” After about 10 minutes, it would try the process all over again. Sometimes the fire would catch; sometimes it wouldn’t.

Now, if I were in the zone, blithely spooling out a narrative wherein zombies were eating the brains of hapless coeds, I would pay no mind to this background noise. If I were out of the zone, that hmmmph-click-click-click would sound thunderous, yet one more distraction leeching away my precious hour, until I would finally turn off the computer and head upstairs for more coffee.

What’s my point of this reverie? These days, I try to pay more attention to the seemingly silent moments, whenever I get a chance. Often, I detect scuttles and scrabblings and hisses and groans that were always there, but under the radar of my unconscious mind. Also, I try to be mindful of the other details in my life that I either take for granted or have been hovering at the edge of my eyesight for a while…always there, but commanding none of my attention.

If you listen intently, you just might hear whispers from the quiet spaces all around you. If you squint your eyes, that shadow in the corner may divulge its secrets, eventually.