The Sound of Silence

<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority=”66″ SemiHidden=”false”
UnhideWhenUsed=”false” Name=”Medium List 2 Accent 2″ />

<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="ColorfulShading Accent 6″ />

I have always associated the sound of clocks ticking with homes of the elderly.

My grandmother had a large table clock with a pendulum.  It was about half the size of a grandfather clock and had a special place on the round table in the corner of her living room.  I was always fascinated with the pendulum as it swung back and forth back and forth back and forth.  The ticking of this clock could be heard throughout the downstairs.

My sister and I would set up the areas of our doll houses—gramma had doll furniture and fences like for farm animals but no animals.  We used the fences for building rooms in our houses and would play for hours.  All the while the clock ticking created a background noise.

My Gramma Nanny’s house didn’t have such a clock and didn’t have doll house toys, but Nanny had these little magnetic dogs with which we liked to play, using them to scoot around on the paisley design in her carpet.  Even without the pendulum clock, her house had the same tick tick tick sound of clocks as background noise while we played quietly in the living room.

The house where my sons and I lived never had clocks ticking.  We had lots of noise from the children, the neighbors, school friends, television, radios, records playing.  There were people in and out of the house all the time.  One man I dated for many years got caught in an ice storm at my house and stayed for three days until we could get out of the house and the streets safely.  He very honestly told me he could never live with my children and me because it was just too busy.  While I loved the man, it was the busy that I also loved.  Busy was alive.

And that busy lively noise life continued.  When I took roadtrips—my favorite trips have been those solo trips—the radio or tapes were loud as I sang along, putting miles on the wheels.  I had plenty of time to think, plan, check out the world.  Singing, dancing in the car, driving at night to slower music…always noisy, always movement, always alive. 

When I would visit my mother during those roadtrips, we would sit and talk for hours.  The television was usually on but there it was…during those quiet times…the sound of her clock ticking.

Over Christmas week, we had visitors for a few days.  My sons and my daughter in law and my vivacious grandgirl spent Christmas Eve and all day Christmas with us.  There was laughter and singing and voices.  There was teasing and light arguments; the volume of voices in the house went up and down and up and down.  As with any family, it was alive.  The oven went out Christmas morning and solutions abounded, from Chinese dinner like in A Christmas Story to eating cereal.  Nothing seemed to bother any of us, with laughter all around.

And the days that followed came the sound of the clocks.  Tick.  Tick.  Tick.  I noticed the sound of the clocks.  No longer do we play the radio while we work and play upstairs on our computers.  Just keyboard clicks and clock ticks.  Seldom is the television on to provide background noise.  Just the ticking of the clocks as I sit reading.

The house is always straightened up, the bed is always made.  The dishes are always washed up.  I even clean up my sewing area if I have time to play with fabrics.  And the clocks tick. 

The sound of silence.