In the Background

In the background of life where we think there is nothing but silence and emptiness, there is something. A cacophony of sound makes up what we call silence. We have conditioned ourselves not to hear it and think everything is all quiet.

The still of morning is almost amusingly boisterous, with the humming of industrial machines and tires whirring on streets a few seconds ahead of a car that seems out of place, as if it should still be parked at home at such an hour.

Early birds gurgle out their silent sounds and most days we never notice. But they are there in the background when everything is quiet, seeming to compete with the army of invisible crickets and their unrelenting noise.

A kitchen door closes down the street just loudly enough to be recognized; the morning paper was brought in. Someone else was out in the noise and didn’t hear a thing, either. The cicadas and their rolling chorus just blended into the everyday fabric of another silent morn.

We all might go a little bit crazy if all we had for background was our own voice in our own heads mulling over the disjointed thoughts of our own minds. Thank God for the harmonies of silence: distant dogs, birds in trees, tires on streets, rain softly kissing dry leaves, and green vines swaying with each other in a breeze. Such symphonic silence aids our sanity, don’t you think?

Can you hear it just above your heartbeat? That’s it, the sound that surrounds us as we live, always there in the background. –TSA