Listening hard for the sounds of silence

We were out in the yard the last couple of weekends, immersed in tasks that were mundane and yet glorious.

Weeding vegetable beds. Filling the bird bath. Adding to the compost bin. Replacing the hose that snakes through the raspberries. Pruning the blueberries and blackberries. Planting the rows of peas. Cutting down the ornamental grasses that waved bravely through the winds of winter, making room for the green shoots that now are thrusting forth with the hope of spring.

There is joy in such immersion. Part of that is the nature of such tasks. They accomplish something. You can see the difference immediately and in the long run that follows. Progress and completion are good for the soul. So is the implicit commitment you are making. When you plant a pea or prune a berry bush, you also are pledging to feed them and water them and weed them and support them for however many months it takes before you can pick and devour their yummy goodness.

There is a subtler but no less satisfying joy in the soundtrack to such work. A joy, that is to say, in the relative sound of silence.

It's quiet out in the yard. Traffic is a distant thrum. A neighbor's lawn mower comes and goes. The birds converse. Chimes tinkle in the Long Island breezes. It's so naturally still you can hear the soft scrape of your trowel as it prepares the soil for the peas.

Silence is important. Essential, even. It's more than golden. It's a necessity. But like most good things in life, silence is best taken in doses.

And we really do need those doses these days with so much noise in our lives. There are so many demands for our attention, incessant demands for our attention, a seemingly never-ending competition for our attention. Listen to this, hear me now, I want your attention, I crave your attention, I need your attention. And if I don't get it, I'm not going to stop. I'll just get louder and more present and more intrusive.

It's enough to make one want to yell: Be quiet!

It's enough to make one want to write an ode to silence.

Silence refreshes and recharges. It's at the center of consciousness and reflection. It's a font for creativity and the essence of self-control. Wisdom, I have found, is more likely to emerge from silence, not cacophony. 

Albert Einstein understood this. One of humanity's greatest and most original thinkers, he once remarked that "the monotony and solitude of a quiet life stimulates the creative mind."

One of the curious things about silence, of course, is that it cannot exist without noise. Without the contrast, it loses its power. The very strength of silence comes from the very existence of noise. The more noise, the more precious the silence.

The great soccer player Julie Foudy, who was captain or co-captain of the U.S. women's national team for 14 years, scratched at that dichotomy when she talked about leadership. Leadership, she said, is loud and quiet. You need both, in other words, to achieve.

And when it's quiet around you, when you're quiet, you can listen, and boy do we all need to do more listening these days.

I'm someone who has always cherished the escape to nature, the beauty of a lush forest, the majesty of the mountains, the charge you get from seeing wildlife in the wild, the thrill of anticipating what lies beyond the next bend in the trail.

But I also think a significant part of the allure comes from the quiet of nature, the peace that settles in your chest when it's just you and a gurgling brook or a rustling canopy of leaves. If the backyard is a chapel of quiet, nature is its cathedral.

Nowadays, I'll take either. My ears are always peeled for the sound of something quiet.

Columnist Michael Dobie's opinions are his own.

By Michael Dobie

michael.dobie@newsday.commwdobie

Michael Dobie is a member of the Newsday editorial board.