ADVERTISEMENT

sounds of silence

DawgHammarskjold

Circle of Honor
Gold Member
Feb 5, 2003
55,904
278,438
197

POLING: Storming into sounds of silence​


POLING

Dean Poling


When the power goes out, you can’t help but notice the loss of lights, televisions, computers, etc. Stumbling around in the dark until finding flashlights or candles is hard not to notice. And if you don’t have either, well, the darkness is hard to ignore.

But there’s something else that isn’t as obvious as the lights going out.
It’s the silence.

Given the darkness, you almost don’t even put your finger on what else is amiss, but it is that clean silence of a power outage. You may not realize how many household items and appliances have a constant hum of electricity until the power is gone.

It’s all of those subconscious sounds which we have long since adjusted to hearing by not hearing them. The hum of refrigerators, lights, computers, the dryer running in the next room, the background noise of more than one TV depending upon the size of one’s family and the number of televisions in the household, the sparkle-splash of an aquarium filter. So many sounds, all of the time, just under the radar of awareness.
Then the power goes out and, snap, a clean, mind-clearing silence.

Except you may not realize it. If the power outage is at night, the brain deals with the obvious loss of light and the sense of sight. If you have children or several people in your home, the loss of power stirs much conversation, often yelling. There is the scramble for flashlights. There are phone calls made to other relatives, asking if they still have power; the calls to the power company about losing power.

Some folks may step outside into the garage or onto a porch to gauge both the severity of the situation from the weather to the number of other neighborhood houses without power.

So, you may not notice the silence inside the house. There is the irritation of a missed television show, or the desire to read a book, or get online, or any number of other activities that must be curtailed because of the power outage. The irritation may obscure the silence.
But think about having the power out in a storm. Think about how someone almost always says, would you listen to that rain or listen to that wind? Granted, there is likely some serious weather outside or the power wouldn’t be out. But do you ever wonder if perhaps why the weather sounds so loud out there is because everything is so quiet within?

And then, realizing the power is not coming back during a given evening, you settle into bed and drift asleep to that silence, to the rhythm of the rain that you can actually hear on the rooftop. You drift away to a lullaby of quiet ...

Until the power is restored in the middle of the night, in the middle of a deep sleep, when everything starts humming again, the refrigerator, the gagging start of the aquarium filter, the drone of the computer and everything else that had been running when everyone was awake hours ago.
Suddenly, television sets are blaring, the dryer starts running, lights snap on throughout the house, and then there is the sound of a family suddenly awake at 4:30 in the morning, bumbling out of bed and through the house, turning off TVs, and lights, and the washing machine, and that’s when you realize just how sweet that silence had been.

Dean Poling is and editor with The Valdosta Daily Times and editor of The Tifton Gazette.
 

POLING: Storming into sounds of silence​


POLING

Dean Poling


When the power goes out, you can’t help but notice the loss of lights, televisions, computers, etc. Stumbling around in the dark until finding flashlights or candles is hard not to notice. And if you don’t have either, well, the darkness is hard to ignore.

But there’s something else that isn’t as obvious as the lights going out.
It’s the silence.

Given the darkness, you almost don’t even put your finger on what else is amiss, but it is that clean silence of a power outage. You may not realize how many household items and appliances have a constant hum of electricity until the power is gone.

It’s all of those subconscious sounds which we have long since adjusted to hearing by not hearing them. The hum of refrigerators, lights, computers, the dryer running in the next room, the background noise of more than one TV depending upon the size of one’s family and the number of televisions in the household, the sparkle-splash of an aquarium filter. So many sounds, all of the time, just under the radar of awareness.
Then the power goes out and, snap, a clean, mind-clearing silence.

Except you may not realize it. If the power outage is at night, the brain deals with the obvious loss of light and the sense of sight. If you have children or several people in your home, the loss of power stirs much conversation, often yelling. There is the scramble for flashlights. There are phone calls made to other relatives, asking if they still have power; the calls to the power company about losing power.

Some folks may step outside into the garage or onto a porch to gauge both the severity of the situation from the weather to the number of other neighborhood houses without power.

So, you may not notice the silence inside the house. There is the irritation of a missed television show, or the desire to read a book, or get online, or any number of other activities that must be curtailed because of the power outage. The irritation may obscure the silence.
But think about having the power out in a storm. Think about how someone almost always says, would you listen to that rain or listen to that wind? Granted, there is likely some serious weather outside or the power wouldn’t be out. But do you ever wonder if perhaps why the weather sounds so loud out there is because everything is so quiet within?

And then, realizing the power is not coming back during a given evening, you settle into bed and drift asleep to that silence, to the rhythm of the rain that you can actually hear on the rooftop. You drift away to a lullaby of quiet ...

Until the power is restored in the middle of the night, in the middle of a deep sleep, when everything starts humming again, the refrigerator, the gagging start of the aquarium filter, the drone of the computer and everything else that had been running when everyone was awake hours ago.
Suddenly, television sets are blaring, the dryer starts running, lights snap on throughout the house, and then there is the sound of a family suddenly awake at 4:30 in the morning, bumbling out of bed and through the house, turning off TVs, and lights, and the washing machine, and that’s when you realize just how sweet that silence had been.

Dean Poling is and editor with The Valdosta Daily Times and editor of The Tifton Gazette.

may be a hard belief,
yet I also enjoy silence....
gathering of me own thoughts
via unencombered notes.
 
ADVERTISEMENT