Silence and Solitude

When I was a small boy on our farm, I often felt lonely. I was an only child who had to get comfortable with being alone. Now I see what a blessing it was, a blessing of silence and solitude. I liked to read, and I liked to watch television, and I liked to play with my toy guns, creating various scenarios of peril which required my heroism. I also loved sports, and I came up with ways to play with a basketball, football, baseball, that cast me as the star. In short, because I was an only child, I fell in love with stories, and I learned to rely on my imagination.

Thanks to my father’s temper, there was no lack of noise in our home, but on those days when he was busy in the fields, and my mother was working inside the house, I enjoyed the silence. Sometimes on summer days, I made a tent with a blanket over our clothesline, and I lay on the grass with a book, feeling as if I and its characters were the only people who existed. Yes, there were times when I had playmates, children from neighboring farms, but for the most part I was on my own.

Now, I’m sixty years old, and I find myself in a contemporary world of constant connection and stimulation. Cell phones, email, social media. All of it threatens to create a feeling of anxiety if one should find oneself alone. (Make a post on Facebook, for instance, and see how antsy or depressed you get if no one “likes” it.) Perhaps I’m romanticizing my past, or maybe I’m just an old(er) man griping about the way things are now, but I really do worry about what this climate of always being in the presence of others (even if they are virtual others), or constantly being surrounded by noise (the noise of multiple voices coming at you via text, email, Facebook, Twitter, etc.—voices that demand your participation), does to our ability to deepen our thoughts, to consider, to imagine, to reflect, to dream. That was another way I entertained myself when I was a boy; I knew how to daydream. When I started writing, I knew how to daydream a plot; I’d been doing it most of my life.

So here’s to long summer days deep in the heart of the country, where the only sounds are the birds singing in the trees, the murmur of my mother’s Philco radio playing the three o’clock news, the whirr of her oscillating fan, the soft pops of canning jars sealing on the counter, the faint rattle of the exhaust stack of my father’s tractor in the field on the other side of our woods. He’ll be at work a while longer. My mother has no need to worry about me. She’s working up tomatoes, or green beans, or corn. I’m by myself. I’m on the couch, or on the porch, or in the rope swing in the front yard. I have time. Lots and lots of time, and so I learn not to hurry. I learn to pay attention: to listen to the way squirrels bark when alarmed, to see the maple leaves turn upward and show their undersides just before a storm, to smell the rain in the air long before it comes. I’ll remember these things later. I’ll remember them all my life. I’ll remember those childhood days and how the world of my imagination came into contact with the world of the senses, and I’ll know what a writer needs: solitude, silence, time. Sometimes, I have to remind myself. I have to shut out the noise and learn, again, how to be by myself, how to listen, how to follow my leaps of imagination and thought, how to wait until the right words come.

 

 

6 Comments

  1. Ellen Cassidy on November 9, 2015 at 7:30 am

    This strikes a chord for sure! I had siblings, but there was a large age gap when I was a child so I spent a lot of time alone. I remember wandering for hours at a nearby creek, playing endlessly with my dolls, and receiving a snappish comment if I complained of boredom. And yes, at the risk of sounding like a grumpy fifty year old girl, I truly believe we had it better. Youth today expect to be constantly entertained and have no idea how to generate ideas without technology. And of course all generations scold the next one, but this is a real worry because there are so many repercussions. If I am ever blessed with grandchildren, they will get a big dose of old fashioned play. 🙂 Oh…and I always look forward to your posts!

    • Lee Martin on November 10, 2015 at 11:57 am

      Thanks so much, Ellen. I had 80 acres to roam at will when I was a boy, and because I was that only child with few playmates around, I almost always had to generate my own play, which I really do think helped me develop my imagination. And I had so much time to contemplate all sorts of things like dandelion fuzz, and maple seeds, and the tracks the deer and raccoon, etc., left near the creek bed. Thanks so much, for reading my blog and for taking the time to leave a comment. Your grandchildren will be lucky young’uns, to be sure!

  2. Cyndi on November 9, 2015 at 8:46 am

    Beautiful – I cling to my solitude as well.

    • Lee Martin on November 10, 2015 at 11:52 am

      Thanks, Cyndi. I envy you for having so much nature around you near Yellow Springs.

  3. Roberta W. Coffey on November 9, 2015 at 9:16 am

    Thanks once again, Lee, for your valuable post. It reminded me of how fortunate I am to have so much solitude, and it reminded me to be more aware of the smaller sounds; the sounds other than music playing on the radio. Loved your childhood memories of the sounds made by your mother’s canning….

    • Lee Martin on November 10, 2015 at 11:53 am

      Thanks, Roberta. Sometimes my own solitude gets lonely, but overall I think it leads to a more contemplative and richer life.

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