Spring Bee Hiving Moon
As I wrote a week or so ago, motel rooms are noisy: the fans, the heaters, the coolers, television from other rooms, showers and toilets, even, at the Residence Inn, people playing basketball until 10 pm. I’m sure if you stay at places better constructed than the ones I frequent, this may not be a problem, but for me it has made returning home to the exurban night a real blessing.
After 11:00 pm, 10 pm most nights, the silence here is noticeable. No cars. No motorcycles. No loud music. The dogs might snore a bit, but that’s a soothing sound.
I remember reading about a silent room in someone’s studio here in the Twin Cities, a place so quiet that it’s used for testing acoustical equipment. The guy who runs the room said people couldn’t stand to be in the room for very long. Apparently some level of ambient sound is necessary for us, or at least so expected that its absence suggests something’s gone wrong. I wouldn’t mind spending time in that room, just to see.
Right now there is no thunder. No wind. No hail. No arcosanti bell ringing in the storm. No Great Gray Owl hooting or wolf howling. No lightning. No fireworks from the neighbors across the street. Only the sounds, what are they?, that fill the ear during times of silence. A faint buzzing, a not unpleasant attempt by the ear to hear even when the stimulus is close to non-existent. Silence.
