The Quiet

After months and months of heat, many changes are coming to our little household. As I'm writing this, one of them is happening all around me. This change is the return of The Quiet.

The house is difficult to keep at a consistent temperature. To maintain a livable indoor climate, we have to run fans. Not just one fan or two, in fact, sometimes during the summer, we would have as many as 12 fans running at once. Fans not only cause a rush of air (at various volumes, depending on the size of the fan), but also quite often vibrate or shake or rattle or hum or all of the above.

None of them do this in unison either. So on any given day, we would have the sounds of many disharmonious machines all going at once. They would also rattle things around them, causing more disharmony. Because of the vibrations, quite often  this noise would build and build.

You get used to it, though, I can't say we ever make peace with it. The chaos of fan noise sticks with you. It fuzzes out the brain. I think sometimes I would hear it in my sleep. It doesn't cause harm, but it does cause wear on the soul.  The hours and hours and hours of noise made me feel tired and sometimes truly grated on my nerves.

It's getting colder now.  Most of the fans are turned off. I think one or two may still be on, but only the smaller ones. I feel like, for the first time in months, I can hear again. The loudest sound around me is my typing. I can hear the faint, calm sounds of my roommate as he sleeps. I can hear the cat snoring as she sleeps against my foot. A clock ticks.  My keyboard taps against the table.  Over all though, it's quiet. So, very, very quiet.

I love the fans and I am deeply thankful to have them. There are probably times this summer when they meant the difference between sleeping and being just a little uncomfortable . . . and not sleeping at all. We needed them and they kept us going. So yes, I am very grateful.

However, in this moment, in this quiet, where the frequency has been lowered to a far more manageable level, I am so happy for The Quiet.  I welcome The Quiet to me as if it were an old friend.  And it is, really.  A very old, dear, and healing friend.