When Silence Is Heard: The Soundgarden

Silence is the absence of sound.When we say we crave silence, what do we really mean? I know when I say that I need to ‘get away where it’s quiet,’ I don’t mean that I want to hear nothing.

When I want quiet, I want a world that is quiet enough to hear. I need the din of human-made noise to fall away—not into silence. But so that I can hear the natural world.

Of all our senses, we respond to sound viscerally. A scream or a sigh. An alarm or a laugh. Sound creates atmosphere. It can trigger fight-or-flight, or unwind-relax. Constant natural sounds—rain falling on leaves, waves crashing—tend to relax us. But how often do we hear them? Cars, airplanes, the constant ding of our phones. We exist in a mechanically-noisy world.I aimed to write a simple story about the importance of sound in my garden—the backdrop of birds, ambient insect buzz, and realizing that I can choose plants that produce sound: of wind through tall grasses and trees, of dry seed heads snapping. I start digging into the science—then uncover the social implications—of our modern soundscapes. There’s a reason the World Health Organization published a 100-page abstract titled, “Burden of Disease from Environmental Noise.” Sound affects our health. And the less affluent populations who live where it’s least expensive often because it’s loudest—near factories, highways and flightpaths—carry the burden. I learned a new term: noise equity. We’ll leave it at that.

Gordon Hempton, too, wondered about our environmental soundscape. He founded a research project called “One Square Inch of Silence.” Gordon tangibly located a space that he believes might possibly be the quietest place in our country. It just happens to be in our state’s backyard, in the Hoh Rain Forest of Olympic National Park, known as one of the most untouched and ecologically diverse environments in the U.S.Gordon defines this square inch of silence as having “natural quiet”—a place devoid of “human noise intrusions.”

By locating this Square Inch of Silence, he brings to our attention to the need for space from human noise, why we must fight to protect natural quiet.“Silence is a part of our human nature, which can no longer be heard by most people,” he says on his project page at onesquareinch.org. “If nothing is done to preserve and protect this quiet place from human noise intrusions, natural quiet may be non-existent in our world in the next 10 years.”

As I listened to a sound clip by an author who went searching for this inch—marked with a red stone circle, I laughed—the clip is really loud! Loud with frog and insect and various bird calls that echo near and far. But no plane rumbles overhead. No kayakers squeal on the river nearby. Not a single human sound.Gordon times how long natural sounds can exist in this spot without human noise intruding. The stretches of time between intrusions is shortening over the years.

Indeed. We’ve lived such a loud several years. Stressful news. Every day.

As our world becomes louder, or as my decades march on, now times five—I notice more and more how much natural sounds affect my body. When we build gardens and select plants, it’s often with color and texture and fragrance in mind. Sight and smell. But what about sound?What about grasses that hush and sway in the wind? Aspen leaves that tremble and shimmer with such resonance, I’m sure my eyes can hear them. What about choosing our environments—inside and outside—carefully for sound. Sounds that bring calm. Like your very own Soundgarden.

There’s a birch tree on my way to the alley and my waste bins—garbage, recycle, and worm bin. It’s not the healthiest of birches, and when I first moved in I considered taking it down. Every time I walk near it, no matter what I’m carrying, I hear the leaves hum softly above. The sound still amazes me—how much changes in that moment for me. It is transportive and grounds me all at the same time. The sound fills the air but it’s not… loud. There’s an atmosphere of gentle, created solely by the tree and the air. I become aware of my breath, of the air moving all around us – sound and touch all at once. Shhhhhhhhhhhh. The leaves are saying. We are here. We are all here.

Skagit writer and eater Sarah Stoner is ready for a new year filled with the spaciousness of silence and presence that quiet brings. sarahjstoner@hotmail.com