Home -- enjoying 'The Sounds of Silence'

Last weekend we enjoyed a visit from our great-granddaughter Marilyn and her family. Avery, her daughter, is almost three now and a very happy little girl who likes to play games and visit with the "old folks." Dennis and Lester usually have something to discuss that they liked or didn't like about something on TV. And of course Sponge Bob was constantly entertaining us from that TV while we tried to talk.

When Avery became tired of the toys that date back to her Aunt Susan's childhood she tried her skills on the piano. She actually was playing it one finger at a time until she didn't get enough praise for her solos and then she played both hands at once, with a staccato beat. I didn't mind so much and kept remembering my own father admonishing us for stopping one of our children from banging on the piano. He said that they were learning sounds, high notes and low notes and also learning the different sounds the piano makes when it is pounded and when it is played softly. That was unusual because he couldn't tolerate a lot of our kids' noises but he encouraged the piano playing. But Marilyn has a condition that can't tolerate a lot of stress and noise so she stopped that activity.

I was tired when the weekend was over, even though I enjoyed it, but I stayed home from church to rest a little more. Both Shirley and Lester did go, so I was left all alone. We don't even have a cat to meow anymore as our daughter's cats have now gone back to her refurbished house after the fire damage had been fixed.

I turned the TV off and sat down at the computer for a while. I kept hearing some sounds I could not identify at first. The icemaker in the refrigerator was dropping ice for our drinks and then stopped its job for a while again.

Then I noticed a regular soft thump sound that I couldn't identify. Oh yes, it was the ceiling fan that has one blade that makes a noise at a certain spot each time it passes the area.

I moved to a different chair with my book, but didn't bother to open it. I just sat there now listening to the sounds I had been missing. One of the clocks ticked softly even though it was electric. We have a cuckoo clock, which we have never put up in this house because we have a small wind-up pendulum clock that we preferred. I'll bet you already know why I didn't hear this clock. That's right I didn't wind it up. It chimes on the quarter hour and strikes the time on the hour and half hour. I grew up hearing that type of clock chiming or striking and never noticed the sounds unless I was coming home late, then I heard every strike of the late hour.

Of all things, a female cardinal hopped on the outside sill of the high window of my old office. She didn't exactly sing but she made some chirping sounds which made me think she might have young in a nest nearby, but I didn't want to scare her away by getting up to check that out.

I wanted to go out on the deck and listen closer to the sounds of nature outside, but I know I shouldn't go outside alone anymore for fear of falling. So I started to hum a song made famous by Simon and Garfunkel a few years back. I loved it, and in honor of my quiet morning, decided to print some of the words so each of you can get it stuck in your head as I did when I heard a rendition of them singing that recently.

"The Sounds of Silence"

By Paul Simon

"Hello darkness, my old friend/I've come to talk with you again/because a vision softly creeping/Left its seeds while I was sleeping/ and the vision that was planted/In my brain still remains/within the sound of silence

In restless dreams I walked alone/Narrow streets of cobblestone/'Neath the halo of a street lamp/I turned my collar to the cold and damp/When my eyes were stabbed by the flash of/A neon light that split the night/And touched the sound of silence

And in the naked light I saw/Ten thousand people, maybe more/People talking without speaking/People hearing without listening/People writing songs that voices never share and no one dared/Disturb the sound of silence.

Fools said I, you do not know/Silence like a cancer grows/ Hear my words that I might teach you/Take my arms that I might reach you/ But my words like silent raindrops fell /And echoed in the wells of silence

And the people bowed and prayed/ To the neon God they made/ And the sign flashed out its warning/ In the words that it was forming/ And the signs said, "The words of the prophets/Are written on the subway walls and tenement halls'/And whispered in the sounds of silence."

SHH!