The Sound of Silence
I slept last night with the windows wide open, not because it was particularly hot, but because for the first time in a while it was deadly silent. Not a breath of wind, no animals baying or baa-ing or moo-ing or barking, no children dispatching animated aliens in the den, no haymaking or direct-drilling machinery in the neighbouring paddocks, no wife listening to late-night radio and fretting about today’s lessons. No, all those things were in abeyance, so I took myself off to the big-windowed guest room, threw open the double-hungs, wrapped up warm and listened. To nothing.
Everyone imagines, of course, that it’s quiet in the country. It’s not. The country is actually a workplace, with the workers using the tools of industry to produce their goods. Around here we’ve got the lot – sheep, beef, dairy, cropping, olives, wine … Separate lambs from their mothers, there’s a helluva din. Put a hundred young bulls in a paddock – bedlam. Graze the milkers a bit hard and they start protesting. When the birds are feeding, the gas guns boom. And if a frost is looming there’s no respite from the helicopters or wind machines.
All this noise has been known get on an ex-townie’s wick – but not mine. I enjoy the coming and going of tractors next door, the stock truck rumbling down the road, the plovers screeching as they dive-bomb the magpies. Because I know that here, unlike in the city, there are nights – and sometimes days – that you can hear a farm gate being closed 2kms away. And dawns, like this morning’s, that are filled only with the sound of song from the native birds, slowly returning to the neighbourhood as we all plant a few more trees.
It’s been home for nearly ten years now, but that sound of silence out here in the Wairarapa hinterland is still a luxury worth all the inconveniences of a rural lifestyle.
Simon, a lovely lovely post about the wonders of silence and especially of silence in the country. It reminds me of that line from Marguerite Yourcenar’s Memoir of Hadrian, which went something like ‘Whoever thinks the night is dark has never slept under the stars.’ Keep up your blurts, Simon, they make good reading. To encourage you I’m going to link to your blog….
Mary, you are too kind and your encouragement is appreciated very much. And because I’ve been lagging a bit with the 21st century side of things I’ve been doing some tweeting (hip, huh?!) and I’ve even got them showing up in the sidebar here – I’ve called them “bleets”
Oooh I like the idea of bleets…. they sound more whingy somehow …and therefore surely more, well, heep (french pronunciation of ‘hip’ and linked closely with ‘sheep’) …. maybe you could set up a site for people sick of tweeting sweetly who really really want to BLEET…
As I settled down to sleep last night I was reminded of this wonderful spot-on blurt – it was another of those nights – deadly silent! The doors and windows were open – it was stifling hot and as I wondered at the mass of stars and the magical silence I drifted off. Three times though I was woken by sounds breaking that silence – the first harks back to childhood days and is music to my ears – the calling of the Morepork – he continued making himself heard for ten minutes and then fell silent again. Second was the goods train as it snaked its way along the valley 20kms away – a soothing sound. Lastly there was the cat making that very strange meow-ing sound as it leapt onto the bed with its prey in its mouth……not so pleasant – so I put them outside and shut the doors and windows and lost the magic of ‘the sound of silence’ so special to the country but there will be plenty more silent nights I’m sure……