I’ve been obsessed with silence lately.

My parents tell a story of me at four years of age.  We were living as missionaries in India and taking a bus ride down the mountains.  Apparently, I spent the entirety of the ride down the mountain leaning over the back of the bus driver’s chair, singing and laughing and chatting in his ear.  He loved it, calling me ‘clever.’  Then, when I was in kindergarten, my nickname was ‘Tammy Talker.’  All through school, parent-teacher conferences would bring up a recurring theme: ‘Tammy does very well academically, but she sure does talk a lot.’

As I got older, that noise turned to music.  I sang constantly; my life was a musical.  I’d hum doing dishes, I’d sing in the shower (of course), I even pretended to be on the phone in the car so I could belt along with the radio.  When Dave and I were first married, I slept poorly for months until I got used to falling asleep without the radio on.

But, lately, I crave silence.  I crave stillness.  I crave peacefulness.

In 1952, American composer John Cage released 4’33”, a three-movement piece.  Cage’s composition is for any instrument; each movement is labeled as tacet.  That means silent.  There are no notes, no sounds to be made during the piece, which lasts four minutes and thirty-three seconds.  The audience sits in silence and listens to the space around them and the space within them.  The piece has been called everything from profound and moving to a joke.

In 2010, Marina Abramovic, a 63-year old Serbian artist, took part in a show at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.  Abramovic’s piece was titled “The Artist is Present” and featured Abramovic herself seated at a table in the atrium of the museum.  An empty chair was placed on the opposite side of the table, facing Abramovic.  Museum visitors were invited to sit in the chair for a short while, engaging in silent dialogue with Abramovic.  No words were exchanged and soon the visitor would rise and continue on their way.  Abramovic was surprised one night to look up and discover someone familiar sitting in the chair across from her; it was her old lover, someone she hadn’t seen in over 20 years.  The silent conversation they had was more meaningful than any inane empty small talk would have been.

I silence I seek is not for art, at least I don’t think it is.  I believe the silence I seek is a direct reaction to the busyness of life.  Who am I when I’m quiet?  Who am I when I’m not striving to be the funny one, the clever one?  Being silent allows me to breathe and clear my mind of this awesomely industrialized world we live in.

Now, I’m not saying I’m going to go all Henry David Thoreau on you…no matter how tempted I am.  I am, however, going to slow down.  To make less noise.  To turn off the radio and television.  To listen to the silence, perhaps even for as long as four minutes and thirty-three seconds.

Can you do it?
Tam