Silence. The sound of silence. Simon and Garfunkel. “Hello, Darkness my old friend. I’ve come to talk with you again.” Silence is a luxury in my life. Sounds accost me on every side. Right this very moment, cars are whizzing by outside, my dog is gnawing with great determination on her bone, and the clicking of the keys of two computers makes a tap, tap, tapping noise. That is in a house, which is otherwise silent at the moment. No tv sounds, which are usually a low drone off in another room, or someone on the telephone, animated voice drifting across the house, or a dog/cat standoff, with hissing and barking and the accompanying scolding from the disciplinarian. Right now, I can hear my student breathing as he types – it’s that quiet – and yet, suddenly the hum of a helicopter comes into range, not too far from the roof of my house. City living is not conducive to great silence. Or at least, city living on my street, which is busy on its own, but also situated between to boulevards that are teeming with activity.

I have a constant buzz in my ears even when it’s silent all around me. The joys of advancing age, I believe. Tinnitus is what it’s called and the buzz is high pitched, as if crickets were on meth and decided to go up five or six octaves.

Sometimes I long for silence. Often, if the truth be told. Actually, I long for natural sounds rather than those of people or machines. The wind in the trees is one of my favorite sounds, especially when there the trees are covered in leaves. That sound brings me peace. Or the gentle lapping sound of ocean waves – silent of other noises except for that rhythmic ebb and flow. That helps me to breathe deeper than I usually do.

I think being deaf would be a curse. Poor Beethoven. What a fate for a man whose whole life was music. I love music and am so glad that I can hear. Silence is lovely, but only when you want it.

Habit. Ah, that’s an interesting concept. “Habits define the man,” I am fond of saying, meaning how one spends one’s time will determine who you are and how you perceive the world. I usually say this when I see someone whose habits are not good. Meaning that are they are exhibiting destructive behavior that ends up making them hard to know due to their self-absorption. I also think about my own habits – the ones that get me in trouble. The ones that add extra pounds to my short frame, or keep me sedentary rather than active, or less literate than I’d like to be. I also see habits in my husband that I find annoying. For example, my husband has a habit of calling on the phone and saying, “What’s going on?” I find this annoying because I feel put on the stop, as if I’m suppose to suddenly list my activities, and they better be productive. It’s odd because I suspect my husband would be shocked to hear me say that. I usually just say, “What are you doing?” That way I turn the inquiry back on him. He doesn’t seem to find my habitual response irritating. He simply answers. My dog has a habit of getting up at before dawn every day. This is probably because I used to be in the habit of going on a hike in the pre-dawn hours with a friend when my dog was a puppy. She is ready for me to re-engage in that habit and get her outside. This would be an excellent new habit for me to start, particularly since it would help eliminate the ones I mentioned earlier about being a little bit overweight and sedentary. The funny thing about habits is that it’s hard to continue healthy ones and easy to keep doing the bad ones. Habits do define the man or the woman or the child. It’s just sometimes the definition is not what we want to be, but rather just how we are on a series of lazy days when doing good things just seems like work.