I can still feel the prickle of adrenaline, from a dozen years ago, while sitting in Quaker meeting trying to maintain silence, and knowing I was about to fail. The almost physical itch to share a story, an anecdote, a stray thread of personal philosophy, was often impossible to resist, despite the standard that one really shouldn’t speak in Quaker meeting unless one can improve upon the silence. (Now, I stay home on Sundays, wise-cracking with my spouse and the outspread pages of the The New York Times.)
Silence has rarely been a friend of mine. Like many younger siblings, I learned early on to diffuse tense silence in a room with chatter and goofs. As a student, I was Hermione Granger, flinging up a hand the first beat after a teacher’s question, to spare us the awkward silence of classroom apathy. And as I learned more about the injustices of the world, I saw how silence was a powerful tool of abusers, who bully and intimidate victims until they’re too afraid for their lives to speak up. A few years ago, some students on my college campus began organizing a “Day of Silence” for LGBTQ teens, and they suddenly decided, “You know what? Why should we be silent? Let’s have a day of LOUD!” Those are my people.
And yet, I’m in a season of life when silence seems swollen with meaning. Maybe I’m learning to focus on its lessons.
Before the winter holidays, I read an inspiring post by writer Rebecca Solnit, who rhapsodized about a Portland hotel that years ago held a monthly silent reading hour to encourage the habit of reading for pleasure. To maintain the hush, readers passed drink orders on handwritten slips of paper as they settled into plush armchairs. I couldn’t resist sharing Solnit’s memory on my own social media page, and an unfurling scroll of introverted bookworms typed back that we should make this fantasy come true, right here, right now. All the pleasures of community without the pressure of talking? We were in. And all while getting back into the delicious habit of sustained silent reading? Bliss.
After a back-and-forth brainstorm with a close friend, we organized via Facebook some monthly meet-ups that we’re calling “The Reading Hour - South Bend.” So-called “Silent Book Clubs,” with the same concept, have started up in other cities, including Goshen, in Fables Books. Our first South Bend gathering was last weekend in the soaring sky-lighted atrium of the DoubleTree Hotel. Thirty readers showed up with historical novels, crime thrillers, non-fiction and fantasy books, hard-backs, soft-backs, and Kindles. We smiled, nodded at one another, and dropped into chairs for an hour of convivial silent reading. The background whirr of fans softened any weirdness about the silence. Swaying potted palms and steam curling from travel mugs framed the page-rustling readers around me, keeping me from ancily pulling out a phone for a peek and a scroll. Who needed more stimulation? We were a silent choir, tuned to separate narratives but harmonizing through shared attention, keeping the beat with the slow turn of pages or soft strokes across e-reader screens.
In winter walks, I’ve noticed how sounds can somehow heighten the depths of silence. The basso profundo wind chimes swinging from high branches in Wellfield Botanical Gardens or Pinhook Park, for example, quiet the chatter in my head so I can focus on the fading tones, re-introducing me to the fulsomeness of winter’s hush.
And if you haven’t yet taken a twirl on the slow-as-molasses in, well, January, “singing benches” in South Bend, dreamt up by the Montreal company, “Tous Les Jours.”, add that to your Sounds of Silence tour. Bring a friend to the Southwest corner of the Jefferson Street Bridge, and hold your tongues as the surprising harmonies hum from the lighted benches. The rising music fades; the season’s silence, improved, rises. Listen.
