A friend and I recently had an e-mail exchange about silence versus…well, anything that makes noise. He went through a great deal of trouble to find a portable radio that meets his living and exercising needs. Exercising is also his excuse for owning an iPod. I don’t own an iPod. Or a Blackberry…in fact, I’m still not even sure what a Blackberry is. I’ll figure that out as soon as I figure out what Blue Tooth means. Anyhow, I realized that I really am different from the majority of people in that I seek and crave silence. When I walk, I can’t imagine taking an iPod or radio or cell phone. I want the total silence of the day broken only by the sounds of the birds in the trees. I can get so far into my head, whether creating stories or writing a column or thinking about a difficult children’s case, that I have actually found myself totally stopped in the middle of the road. I just got so engrossed in my head that I forgot to walk. At night, when all the birds have gone to sleep and the dogs have found their bed for the first part of their night, I love to sit up doing a crossword puzzle or reading a magazine and reveling in the silence that surrounds me.
Is that really weird or what?