Silent Nights

Pragmatics

• -Here’s one blogger on falling asleep to owl sounds.



• -I was delighted to find a good sample of morning birdsong on Youtube! The videos are a bit odd, since it’s really more about the sound than the sight.



• -Listening to Nature: A Soundwalk across California is another treat for the ears.



• -Listening is not confined to the country. Here are New Yorkers who are soothed by buoy bells, the Amtrak whistle, or even the white noise of traffic!
  

Prose

The temperature reached the mid 90s last night, so I tolerated the icy drone of the AC as I fell to sleep. I prefer to avoid the AC, even at the cost of feeling a bit sticky. It makes me feel confined, shut off.

I thought back to childhood evenings of summer. I had an early bedtime, and never an air conditioner. Lying flat under a thin sheet, I fell to sleep listening. The requisite crickets all summer, of course. Chris, three years my senior and the ultimate crush of my youth, sitting on the curb with his friends, their restless voices making plans. The voices of Chris’ parents in their yard, lingering as the barbeque cooled. The rise and fall of my own family’s voices, less frequent as they tired. My sleepy mind could never follow the conversation.

As I listened, I also watched. Watched the slant of the light as cars drove down the street, watched it elongate and then narrow the shadow of my blinds and lace curtains. Sometimes in early evening or early morning the shadow of a bird on the telephone wire graced my pink wallpaper. Or sometimes bare tree branches appeared in silhouette. In the winter, of course, fewer sounds to accompany my drift. But I heard the rain, or the early morning snow plow. On autumn trips to our Vermont cabin I heard Daddy get up and get the fire going. For a few weeks every winter I watched the halo of light around a plug-in blue Christmas candle, the same color that I imagined for the Virgin Mary’s robe. I was filled with a holy feeling.

I was struck with gratitude that my room had been completely “unplugged”. Pre computers and cell phones of course. But no AC, no phone, no TV. What a different person I might have become if I’d fallen asleep every night to the TV, or to the sound of cool, compressed air filling my room. What if hadn’t heard summer just before I fell asleep? What if I hadn’t woken to birdsong? I swear I can hear the dusk and dawn, and even on the most stressful of days some small part of my mind treasures this connection.

When I left the still running AC behind in my bedroom this morning, the birds greeted me again. It was good to be back among the living.

The Suspended Animation Experiment

Pragmatics

-Inching toward mediation? Here’s a good summary of the benefits.

• -I’ve just signed up for a free e-publication“101 Things to Do Instead of TV”. It’s kid-oriented, but just scanning the list I see a lot of things I want to go after myself, things that can get lost—more outdoor time, crossword puzzles, audio books, letter writing, etc.


• -This blogging parent, in The Not Quite Crunchy Parent, has decided to use after school time, sans TV, to fill in some educational gaps that her children might have. She calls it afterschooling, but framed of course, as something fun for the kids.

-Yesterday, in the midst of some computer work, I was soothed by the sight and sound of misty rain outside the window. The Watching Nature site is a good substitute for a real walk outside, perfect for one of these cold March nights spent longing for spring.

Prose

Last month, I set out to try 2 weeks without TV. The first week went swimmingly once I got into the groove. I found myself in the den fairly regularly, usually reading while Tom or Gavin watched. I could only take in small bites—no catching up on War and Peace. My best read was a small book of Thomas Merton’s reflections on nature. I envied his simple existence—devoted to contemplation and appreciation, noting how the ice formed or how the sun set. I mourned my shortened attention span, which I cannot attribute to TV alone. I am convinced it is a sped-up lifestyle overall that has my mind flitting when I want it to float.

The second no-TV week was a flop. It was a stressful week. I had some big decisions to make, preparations for Gavin’s birthday, lots of schedule hassles. Turning back to TV as a “numbing agent” reminded me of overeating, a habit I’ve (mostly) overcome. As you do it, you think, “I am slipping back into this, but I don’t feel I can overcome it right now. Maybe tomorrow.”

I think part of inching toward simplicity has to do with expanding your alternatives. It wasn’t just TV or reading that I had to choose from. I could have gotten on that neglected exercise bike, called a friend, enjoyed a hot shower, or simply closed my eyes and rested. If I didn’t have the fortitude to write, I could have sorted through my new markets or made a list of ideas. But I must admit, those things are not initially attractive when you are bone tired. It takes some wherewithal to shake off the electronic sedative, expend some energy and get into something new.

Another aspect of expanding your alternatives has to do with avoiding black and white, bad and good thinking. It doesn’t need to be TV bad, reading good; therefore no TV, ever. Still, I know that my life would benefit from regaining at least half the lost time.

I might be able to live with minutes lost to TV, just some time to zone out and reset my energy meter. So I’m planning on applying my own parenting tool beyond Gavin this week. Since his toddlerhood, I’ve set the timer for all sorts of things. I sometimes use it as a cutoff for TV time—when the timer buzzes it’s playtime again, and Gavin can be counted on to find a way to amuse himself. The buzzer will be my reminder: prevent my zone out minutes from becoming hours of channel surfing.

I’m also resurrecting an old meditation CD I bought for Tom. I remember back to my Nurse Practitioner days, when I led a meditation group. Even leading the group, just a half hour of dimmed lights and soft music, with me doing my best to murmur relaxation-inducing suggestions, left me surprisingly refreshed. There’s an experience that’s worth revisiting.

Organic Psychology

I have a new person to envy: the author Sue Hubbell. Particularly the Sue Hubbell who documents her beekeeping in A Book of Bees: And How to Keep Them. Part of her routine is to fill a thermos with coffee and go down to watch the bees. I picture her leaning against the warm bark of a tree trunk in the sun, watching carefully and then taking thoughtful notes.

It’s not the bees that I envy, although I do treasure an occasional glimpse into their productive world (note: Hubbell writes that an entomologist who tagged bees [I picture him applying microscopic security bracelets to their hair-thin legs] found that they spent a lot of time idle. A lesson here?). It is the regular contact with nature that I envy.

Yesterday I walked the three miles to work. I’ve had walks with more sights to report, more deer and herons and swans. But yesterday I simply cherished the smell of the day and the marsh warming up and the sun on my face. I smiled at the squirrels, who rattled about the trees bordering the water. In my pocket I carried two elegant and perfect leaves, species unknown. A three-year-old girl waiting for the bus with her sisters chased me to bestow this gift, squeaking “Happy Birthday” as she bestowed them. They were my talisman, my memento of the peaceful start to my day. That walk was the ideal mix of exercise, contact with nature, and contact with people at their best. Older children alone and younger children with their parents waited outside for the school bus, and they, too, seemed to be relishing the quiet and sunny morning. If only I could start every day this way.

I’ve had the pleasure of meeting a like-minded soul this week. Michael J. Cohen, a Director of the Institute of Global Education, heads up Project NatureConnect, an initiative that recognizes a link between many of our problems and the extreme disconnection with nature that is epidemic in the modern world, aka Natural System Dysfunction. The remedy? Organic Psychology, an approach that helps reconnect psyches with natural systems. I am intrigued by this mindset, which sounds simple and radical all at once. I am learning more about it. Cohen has been identified as a maverick genius, and there are many layers to his work. My own initial take, looking back on my week, is that children may be good guides for this approach, little organic psychologists or facilitators in their own right. Twice this week Gavin and I let furry caterpillars traverse our arms, and on Wednesday we followed a warty toad as it leapt across our lawn. These moments were graced by a quiet pleasure, a sense of connection, and temporary amnesia from time and tasks at hand.

I love to catch myself at typos and read into their Freudian slips. I often type right instead of write, a very revealing slip for me as writing is what rights me. I chuckled reading back this entry, for at first I typed warty today instead of toad. It is a task-laden day before me, a long list of postponed chores and responsibilities. But later I will relish a walk in the woods, maybe another caterpillar or toad moment. It’s something to look forward to.

Leaving Las Vegas: Thoughts on the Power of Place

Pragmatics

Wendell Berry said, If you don't know where you are, you don't know where you are going. Some links that look at sense of place and how it connects with both the personal and the ecological:

• -Writers and artists love to philosophize on the meaning of place, how we connect to place, how place affects us (see my own philosophizing in prose below!). One great example: the travel anthology A Sense of Place.
• -This Web site has some great quotes on the sense of place we derive from home and garden.
• -More and more school curriculums are realizing the need for children to understand their local ecology, and how it connects to the world at large. Here’s one of many curriculum links on the topic.
• -Richard Louv coins a new term, Nature Deficit Disorder, in Last Child in the Woods. He doesn’t define the term medically – his book is a look at the increasing disconnection of children from their natural surroundings, and the importance of reconnection. Ditto for adults, I say.
  
  

Prose

I’ve spent a week in Las Vegas, the anti-simplicity capitol of the world. I was surrounded by noise, flashing lights, and larger-than-life artifice. The hotels are in a one-upmanship race for the biggest attraction. We saw lions pacing in glass tunnels at MGM, an almost-authentic joust at Excalibur, and the Eiffel Tower at (where else?) Paris, Vegas. I got a good feel for how the rich get bored. Every possibility for indulgence and amazement, and still even Gavin’s eyes began to glaze over. Man made thrills have no real staying power. They are sugar highs.

It may not be my favorite destination, but work got me to Vegas and I was glad to stay on and vacation with Tom and Gavin. We loved the deep bathtub in our hotel. We savored our lunch in Paris. Faux as they were, the cobblestones and patisserie storefronts conveyed a warm European ambiance. We won money in the slots after many failed attempts. Enough to cover all that we had gambled away, and perhaps a few of our meals.

After a couple of days of glitz overdose, I craved fresh air and quiet moments. A stroll through the indoor conservatory at The Bellagio helped. Sunlight streamed in through the high paned ceiling, and I marveled at the floral displays and exotic butterflies. Our trip to Hoover Dam provided some desert scenery and a walk in the high, dry air. I took in brown, black, and orange mountain ranges and tons of sagebrush, so foreign to my East Coast eye.

Tom and I have already started to plan a Vegas antidote – a camping trip somewhere local when we return to Connecticut. He surfed around on the Internet, looking at tent deals (our last one, the one we spent our engagement trip in, went to mildew and rot). We crave a wooded campsite by some water (some real water free of pennies, dimes, fountains, light shows, and chlorine) and long nights contemplating the stars.

Vegas does not seem compatible with writing – not the kind I do, anyway. Living here for a week (and I am still here, in the airport) has made me think a lot about place and how it affects us. I watched strangers relax in the sunlight of the conservatory, and I swear I watched their faces take on a hard look in the casino. Not immediately, and not when they were winning, but most of the time.

Can you be anywhere and still manage to achieve inner peace? Can you be surrounded by slot machines and billboards and push them aside mentally, focus on deeper thoughts, on true priorities that reside far from money and celebrity? Thinking about my own experience of leaving crowded suburbia behind, I think it requires more effort in some environments. It can be done, but you might have to crank up your mental energy to stay with what’s real.

Postscript: I am glad to be back in the place I call home. Looking forward to a long walk later.