The Sounds of Silence

Waking here in the morning is  sweet experience.  The sounds are very different than the sounds I hear in Gilbert coming to consciousness.  The apartment complex is U-shaped with a large rectangular building in the middle (the last vestiges of "The Brewery" with original stone walls are a part of that center building).  The top of the U is St. Thomas Street, with two openings out onto the road.  The entire surface outside our apartments is paved in a sort of stone/brick.  Since that surface is surrounded by brick buildings, the sounds that ricochet off of everything have a haunting echo-like sound. 

 It used to be that we would awaken to all kinds of sounds out there.  We have our bedroom windows open around the clock.  Delivery vans, cars coming and going, garbage trucks twice weekly and the sound of workmen chatting as they labor at their tasks.  Normally, there is a variety and a cadence to the noises we hear.

But the last few months, it has been different.  It has been silent.  More people staying in, fewer people out on the road, fewer trucks and delivery vans, and less activity.  It is as though Oxford has fallen asleep.  Often when I awake in the morning, I go into the living room and sit in the silence to read.  Outside there is a stillness that is difficult to explain.  In fact, the only real sound is the tick tock of the clock marking the passage of time.  I enjoy it.

Sometimes the stillness is broken by a runner.  I have heard the runner a few times, footsteps echoing eerily on the pavement as he or she runs around and around the apartment complex.  I imagine I hear the heavy breathing along with the running.

We have a little family who lives a few apartments away.  They have two children, probably in the age range of 5 to 10.  The mother takes them out every day for an hour or so, and often they stay in the complex.  I can hear their laughter, the sounds of balls hitting the pavement, the noise of bicycles or skates.  All of that comes with its own peculiar acoustics too.  

Those sounds - all of them - are just a little bit sad, in that it speaks of such an urban environment, with very few sounds of nature, other than what the weather makes.

Yet, just outside of these apartment walls is a whole world of nature, wild nature, cultivated nature and it is magnificent.  

We had a couple of zoom meetings, we reached out to several of our young adults, and we spent some time with the young missionaries.  I opened the letter from Elder Bricknell and read it again.

In the silence of this apartment, as I (sometimes) ponder if we are doing anything worthwhile here, I am reassured that there is reason to be in Oxford now, during the pandemic, during a national lockdown, and with so little we can do for anyone.