On Sound Machines and Silence

Are you hearing that too, or is it just me?

Breathe (verb)
“to inhale and exhale freely”

---

“Mommy, do we have any money?!” The girls burst through the front door. Their cheeks are flush, their helmets askew, and tousled hair is tangled wildly against their necks. They've been biking in circles through the perfect fall afternoon. Both their smiles and eyes are beaming, but it’s not because they see the beauty in their sisterhood-friendship. 

They've heard the ice cream truck. 

The truck may not be in our neighborhood, but the peculiar acoustics of our neighborhood mean we hear the ice cream in surround-sound. When its tinny Christmas-themed music drifts through our front yard, there are no guarantees.. It may not even be on our side of the road. In fact, our lovely, gray house sits on a quiet bend, a crook often neglected by ice cream trucks.

But there have been times. Two or three hot summer days where the kids crowded on the porch, rapidly lapping watermelon popsicles. Their faces sticky and sugared, flush with sweat and ice cream smears. Breathing the delight of catching the ice-cream music. 

The girls are six and four, delighting in everything pink, mint, and cute. One daughter still has on a helmet, her sparkling shoes as bright as her eyes. I’m barefooted, just like my other daughter. Our matching bright-pink toenail polish (the color is Hot Strawberry, if you must know) seems especially vivid in the autumn afternoon. With my wallet in hand (do ice cream trucks even take credit cards?), we scurry down the road. Hoping. Pausing. Listening. 

“Okay, everybody be quiet,” I say. We hold our breaths together and lift our ears as high as we can. Is that the ice cream truck or a wind chime? The gravel-y, crusty scrape of skateboard wheels rattles past. Orange-brown leaves skitter across the yellowing grass. The wind ebbs as one girl clasps her hands together in a silent prayer. 

Despite a good thirty minutes of lingering and listening, today isn't a victory day. There’s no ice cream truck in sight. 

“We gave it a good try, didn’t we?” I ask. No one responds as we tromp toward home with slow steps, following the flat, narrow curb. The fall wind whispers against our skin, carrying the stillness of the neighborhood. 

Somewhere along the way, the girls warm from dragging steps into skipping. They race ahead of me but pause in our driveway. One girl lowers her brow, her face as serious as her sweaty, flushed cheeks will allow.  

The wind carries whispers as the other girl nods gravely to her sister. “We gave it a good try, didn’t we?” 

---

There are times I want muffling. 

Our nightly ritual of the sound machine blurring all nighttime nuances. Dulling rattling doors, flushing toilets, playful cats, or the nighttime cries as one baby or another tosses in sleep. The muffling is essential. The muffling lets me breathe. 

But there are times I want the stillness.

I just need quiet. For no one, no dishes, and no anxieties to need me. The porch is a haven, and I perch on the wooden edge by the sidewalk, breathing amid the skittering of curled, dried leaves. A bird warbles and an airplane rumbles far, far away. Cars swoosh nearer and then farther again. The mail truck hiccups nearby. It's not totally quiet on the porch – but it’s enough. The silence lets me breathe. 

Sounds go two ways for me, and I wonder if you find it too? How do you feel when there’s too much noise? Or when it’s too quiet?

 

Warmly,
Rachael

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Photo by amjd rdwan on Unsplash

This post is part of a blog hop with Exhale—an online community of women pursuing creativity alongside motherhood, led by the writing team behind Coffee + Crumbs. Click here to view the next post in the series “Mellifluous.”