I know it is summer in New York because the city feels less impossible. The courtyard below my apartment window ricochets with the laughter of three, maybe four, boys who worship football —soccer, if you want — with the kind of passion that easily puts the most devout member of any Abrahamic religion to deep, scarlet-shade shame. All I know is one boy’s name is David and the other is Gustavo — or rather, “Gustavo!” — and the ball is never played fairly according to David. This morning, their father installed one of those inflated swimming pools in the right corner of the courtyard, directly where the sun throws its glorious light. The water reflects the rays that then bounce and dance on the old brick walls of the building surrounding the children on all four sides. There are tests for whoever can hold their breath the longest in the heavily chlorinated water. Mango slices for you all, thank you, mama. Everyone squeezes in to enjoy the cool of the pool and the victory of June’s sun.
Things have changed — as they do and should. I am 27 in a city I entered when I was 25. Two years seem paltry and pitiable in terms of their duration but what a storm it has been and will be. I have learned many things. I speak new languages born out of old ones. I sleep the same; brittle and spotty. I will always pull a dollar or three for a slice of fresh fruit. I grow more and more comfortable with my silence and deliberately delayed response to express excitement. I like the indolence that has come with this age. When I was a teenager, I trembled with nerves. Everything ached, everything electrified. Now I simply waltz to my own song. When I read articles targeting women, I feel angry, sure, but more than that, I feel sad. There is nothing more beautiful than feeling at ease with the chapters of your body. Some days I imagine writing about womanhood. But then I nap.
David, Gustavo! and the boys. There are types of silence. I learned this when I was little, living with my family in northern Virginia. There was the quiet that emanated from my mother on heavy summer evenings; lemons quartered and sliced into perfect yellow crescent moons. This was the alive classification of silence. Mama with the ceiling lamp swimming all over her tired, beautiful face. There was the musical silence that my younger sister showed when she found a firefly in the grassy backyard. She never captured it — she never planned to. She simply marveled at such a being of light. There was my father’s sober silence that immediately came to life during chaos. A kind of quiet that intently observed disorder and pounced on its patterns. I inherited that from him. And then there was the sleepy silence my youngest sister glowed with during story time. Living on my own, as a woman, has cemented this knowledge. The boys playing football speak an animal language of excitement, competition and exhaustion without ever saying anything except yells, cries, grunts. After a game of bruising each other physically and emotionally, the youngest will often lie on the ground and sigh. No words are spoken. This is his peaceful silence. His communion with the cosmos.
Living on your own forces you to confront the anatomy of silence. Some of us tremble before quiet; it compels us to face ourselves. Some of us bloom in silence; it takes away the anxiety of appearing in front of others. Of forcing ourselves to become.Communication is fraught with loneliness, and living alone is a test of all kinds of communication. Not speaking and speaking are both languages. I learned that in the two years I’ve lived here. I have also learned why I grow irritated with unsolicited sounds; they impose a narrative on me and it’s not mine. Sound we never ask for is noise; a kind of attack on our senses. Sound we seek is music. There is a reason why we simply beg for silence during certain times of the day: we want to meet ourselves in that solitude.
One of the antecedents of the world ‘silence’ is desinere from Latin. Stop. A kind of plea. Which sounds apt given how our ruckus has irrevocably altered the acoustics of the earth. The effect of climate change on our environment, for instance, is a subject of sound, too. Through thoughtless human activities generating unnatural noise, the circadian rhythms and habitats of various creatures become targets of invasion and violence. Sound provides a sense of place and belonging. Distorted sound removes that familiarity and replaces it with alienation. Fear. Audio torture used in Guantanamo Bay is an example of sound used to inflict violence.
Life is strange in New York where the clamor of urban life drowns out most peace. But sometimes — only sometimes — the city slows down. You can hear the dull ache of constant life. That’s when I watch the arrogant sun obediently follow the laws of reflection, and David no longer cares if he wins against his brothers. We both allow the quiet to wash over us.
And I hope you and your silence are well.
annaxmalina
jacobvanloon
discoholicmusic
dailybridgerton
kaledo-art
