Silent July

A work in progress

Currently I am attempting a silent July, at least until a book fair in Saint-Gilles-Pligeaux on the 26^th, avoiding all but the most minimal exchange of a smile in greeting or nod of thanks. It is what passes by the name ‘social silence’. This now is partly protection: it lends me a little strength towards coping with the extreme weather, but there is also a strong intuition, tapping away like a woodpecker, that I have lost touch lately with my natural rhythms. And I know I’m not listening attentively to my own voice. There are too many other sounds competing for recognition. Even writing is really a noisy activity.

Silence is often thought of as absence, but to me it brings a true experience of presence. It is full of reflective colour. Not the proverbial golden of keeping one’s thoughts to one’s self, nor the dark emptiness of idealistic meditators, my silence starts sludgy then clarifies slowly over days into shades of purple, lilac or periwinkle blue. These are noble shades of strong spiritual connotation, but also an echo of the serenity no noise brings. When the power of silence builds over time, it

brings a fundamental shiny connection with creative deeps.

I need silence more and more, and it is not just a question of the absence of sound. There is a daily surfeit of visual noise to contend with, even with the simplest task of sending an email or buying something in a shop. The loudness of advertising and constant flickering switch of images on the multitude of screens we encounter in almost any exchange fills the brain as much as any raucous music. As interaction of this stimulative type has become habitual, we have forgotten that silence is a natural state. It takes time to remember.

The intense heat is hurting me in heart, lungs and eyes. It makes me ill. I am struggling when the outdoors, always my energy source, is taken away and I am incarcerated behind shutters inside the house from 9am to 10pm daily. And, as the forest is temporarily closed to public access because of the threat of fire, it feels like extreme deprivation of a torturous kind. With nothing powering my starter motor, the plug on mental and physical activity is pulled, until the power of silence takes over.

Inactivity can be good. My passion for sport is always indulged in July with Wimbledon and the Tour de France. This year I can add the World Cup and a series of rugby internationals. But watching sport in silence, as I must, without the emotional pile-on whipped up by braying commentary and pulsating crowd noise, becomes a purer experience. I am aware only of the beauty of movement in the human body, mute dances of joyful skill. And watching great matches without a thudding heart and raging pulse is incongruously restful...

Silence lies in the body, physically and as a dimension of consciousness, but it can take the head a long time to come round to this evidence. In fact, the brain quickly lights up with respite from noise, it revels in the space for creative thought, expanding inner horizons and evaluating memory and experience in new ways. I soon feel the difference, a sprouting sense of potential and ability rising from waters of the lake like a magical sword. This is what it’s all for. It isn’t easy, even for me, to cut off from people for so long.

Silence is not a human concept, existing far beyond such narrow boundaries. The inaudible growth of the plant world is an obvious example. But inevitably we have tried to shape and define the phenomenon to serve ourselves. It means very different things to different people, however: a peaceful woodland with no sound except gentle birdsong may be silence for some, noise for others. Distant mechanical sounds and the repetitive drone of electric tools may pass unnoticed in normal daily dissonance or cause inestimable anguish. Of necessity, I have a fan on wherever I settle in the house, but the sound soon soothes and fades because there is no need for communication. The fan and I have nothing to say to one another. This is the nub of the matter.

Many fear silence and obliterate it from their lives, filling up spaces shallowly with words. Talk is basically what separates us from the balm of silence. I wish sometimes words could be rationed, so we all made better choices. Too many are spilt for no purpose. I am aware that I have started to do this myself, almost as a (useless) defence mechanism. The common talking over nature when walking in the countryside is a good example of how reluctant many are to be rooted in the present, which is one gift of silence. Landscape has its own language, its own currency of exchange, and needs neither chatter nor hyperbole. It asks something more of us.

Words slide us away from our immediate surroundings so easily. A dog-walking couple appear early one morning in a remote spot when I’m in the middle of a stream, feet revelling in cool water, fully living the here and now. They want to talk. She insists on talking. Soon I have life stories and political opinions dumped onto me, and a painful awareness of how an illegal tipping site must feel, buried under the detritus of others. I should be grateful she has no interest in any word from me.

Of course, I am not ‘normal’ and my expectations are unrealistic. I have no capacity nor desire for socially conventional behaviour. It isn’t real to me. Human interaction has always held a notion of play-acting in my peculiar world. My otrovert personality fuels the natural tendency to turn away from things, and noise becomes increasingly something to be avoided, shunned for the sake of ease. Silence is the friendliest of companions. As excitement loses its edge of elation with age, I can find that same stimulation more easily in the cool blue depth of silence, which wraps me in its own adventure: tranquil but fertile, firm but bold.

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