I’ve been exploring all kinds of silence during my time at the cottage, and have concluded that it can be defined in many ways, and that any definition is context bound. I can’t say that silence is the absence of sound, but I will say, loud and clear, that when there is noise, there is no silence. My working definition of noise, at least for today, is as follows: noise is any sound that grates on the nerves, takes over all the space, and conjures up negative thoughts.
That’s what happened yesterday as I headed for the beach and heard, and then saw. a mammoth piece of construction equipment, which I can best describe as a woodpecker robot. This machine bird was breaking up an old sea wall, pecking away at huge concrete pipes with the intention of turning them into rocks. I won’t go into the ecological issues here because I don’t know them, but I will report the noise pollution, which any normal person can accurately identify as such. Around the construction spot the sound was deafening, filling all my criteria; but what was frightening was the way the spill echoed off cottage after cottage, following me a good mile. It wasn’t until I got onto the beach that the waves became music to my ears. That was silence.
That’s what happened yesterday as I headed for the beach and heard, and then saw. a mammoth piece of construction equipment, which I can best describe as a woodpecker robot. This machine bird was breaking up an old sea wall, pecking away at huge concrete pipes with the intention of turning them into rocks. I won’t go into the ecological issues here because I don’t know them, but I will report the noise pollution, which any normal person can accurately identify as such. Around the construction spot the sound was deafening, filling all my criteria; but what was frightening was the way the spill echoed off cottage after cottage, following me a good mile. It wasn’t until I got onto the beach that the waves became music to my ears. That was silence.