Noise.

Lately, I feel like I can't get away from noise. It's everywhere; it seems like everything in my life is so loud, at work, at home, in between. Even things I like, that I would never want to get rid of, are kind of loud. And there is always some kind of sound around. Usually, there are many.

Today, during a break at work, I took a short rest in the marketing storage room, one of the quietest places in my life. I could still hear the noises of the building and the city, though they were muted, and also a loud ringing that seemed to be in my ears that I'd never noticed before. Is it always there? Is it always there when it's less loud than usual? I don't even know.

In the past few weeks I've been especially struck by how loud cars are! I haven't thought about it much before, maybe because I've always been around cars. But man! Those things are loud, and dirty.

Then there is another kind of noise: the noise of facebook. How I love facebook, which has gotten me in touch with so many people.....kind of. It is such a strange medium, facebook. I want to look at it and think that I am keeping up with people I care about, but I can't remember all I read, and afterward my brain has this splintered, unfocused feeling. And then, I go back to do it again, very soon. What if someone gets engaged, and I miss it? Does anybody else have this experience with facebook? It's so wonderful and strange a thing.

And of course I make my own noise, mental noise: over-thinking noise, or being irritated noise, or being confused noise. Not always, but much more than never.

These are just some examples. I feel like it's wearing me out, in some way. I really think I'd like some quiet. Outer quiet and inner quiet. I don't know where to find it, though, in the middle of the city. Or anywhere else. I imagine the wild has its noisiness, too, what with rustling leaves and chirping bugs and other lovely things like that.

It sure would be nice to stumble across an empty concert hall right now. I'd love to sit there, still and quiet for for some time, and then, perhaps, get out my tuba and play some long tones and other nice things.

poetry

I was remembering:
I used to come up with poems, while walking.
I can't even remember why I stopped
or when.
Is it my blunted memory,
no longer powerful enough
to remember the lines?
Is it the noise,
the roar of the city
and the clutter in my mind,
and the infinite distractions
carefully crafted
by marketers of every kind?
Or maybe my life is insufficiently tragic
for poetry
now that I am happily married.

Did I write a poem today?


Well.

If so, it is not a very good one.


Maybe the problem is that I know I don't have the time to properly edit them and want to spare myself the pain of poor poems!