Crystal clear quietness invaded my space and caused my ears to ring. No laughing. No music. No birds. No child's monitor hissing in my ear. No phone ringing. No chitter-chatter. No traffic. No children. No tea kettle. No rain drops. A solitude of nothingness stretched out in front of me. A black hole of silence, as if I had been plunged deep underwater. And then the silence quickly ended with a great finale of pots banging, dishes cracking and kids whooping.
There are these perfectly quiet times in my life. Sometimes short and quick other times drawn out, like a tug-a-war rope waiting to be pulled on. There is now no predicting how long it might last. At first it was startling. My first plunge into silence. I tried screaming for help, looking around frantically for someone to pull me out of the quietness. Realizing that my voice too had been silenced I gave up screaming and tried to settle into my new surroundings. Quietness, the absence of noise. It stretched on for years. I grew quite fond of it. I became reliant on the predictability of my quietness. And then one day that predictability ended.
Settling into this new silence proved to be a bit tougher than one might imagine. The jarring that occurred after each bout of unpredictable silence was enough to make my ears ring. The sounds, emerging from the short bursts of silence were hyper and chaotic. I was a ping pong ball being bounced between two enemies. I began to distrust my quietness always anxiously awaiting another deafening blow of sound frequency. During this new silence I became jiggery, haphazard and confused.
I yearn for the quietness of days gone past. The days when it was too loud and I chose to tune out the distracting sounds. I had reached out for the silence. I had needed the silence for I had much to ponder and too much to work out. I rested beside still waters (although the water was raging all around) and my soul was restored. I alone decided when the silence would cease.
Somehow, along the way I gave up the right to decide when the silence ends. It could have been my restored self, giving back the time I thought I had stolen. In any case, there is now no predicting when my silence will be taken from me. I have become paralyzed within my quietness unable to even enjoy the deafening absence of noise. At any moment there could be an explosion of unharmonious sounds and my ears will jump into action. At these times I dearly want to hold on to my silence. To tuck it away. To control it.
But then there are those times that I am slapped in the face by silence. It takes me by surprise. Drifts by on a breeze. I smile at the quiet but knowingly continue on my pandemonium journey. I dance within the craziness of sound and laugh in the face of the void of sound. I don't want the commotion to stop.
I am learning to live over the net, bouncing back and forth between two polar opposites. I am learning that predictable silence creates no challenges and that hyper caterwauling creates no restoration. I am learning that I need both restoration and a challenge in order to gracefully live life. I am learning how to be at peace within the noise and within the silence. I am learning that I am not in control of the ping pong game but what truly matters is how I deal with the living between (over the net).