I wrote today on Seraphic Singles about liking quiet. This is perhaps odd for I grew up in the hum of the distant highway, and I live now under the sound of an airplane corridor. A plane is roaring overhead right now. The highway hum was nicer; it was my ocean.
Once I told a jazz fan that what I liked best was the silence between the notes, and he hailed me as a true believer. I like the silence I can have with old friends, too. With old friends and with family, you can sit in companionable quiet. I don't like it when cafes play loud or otherwise raucous music, for my hearing is beginning to go, and competing noise makes it difficult to hear my companions.
The quiet sounds I like best are as follows: the rain, purring, waves lapping the shore, my parents talking downstairs, the wind in the trees, the crunch of dry autumn leaves, a baby breathing, nuns singing their office when I am still abed, my mentor chatting with a student in another room. The best sound would be of snow falling, only snow makes no sound when it falls. It is the most exciting silent thing in the world.
