We Need Silence

It wasn’t until around day three of the Thanksgiving week holiday when I finally felt like I could hear myself think again. And what I thought was, “I need to do more subtraction this season.”

Honestly, the inner noise has been a roar for a while. “We need silence to know what we think,” wrote Shirley Hazzard. In a life where I make sound for a living, silence is hard to come by.

But I had no sooner come up with my beautiful subtraction intention when I began making plans about how to add more fun, friends and food into my month. Which is not subtraction at all. It is addition at the very least, and possibly multiplication. Sometimes I exhaust myself.

Of course, that’s the tension always, the tug-of-war between our sincere intentions and the pull of the novelty, the bling, the flashing lights and sugar rush of the world around us. And no time is that tension more intense but during the holiday season. All it takes is what starts as a contemplative evening walk through my neighborhood, and the internal chatter begins: Look! I love those twinkling white lights. I could have those! Oh my. Take a look at that wreath on the door. I could do that. Wait! I love that little Christmas tree by the front door. I need that….

And friends, that is the tamest, most PG version of what happens in my brain.

So what does subtraction look like anyway? As I say to my students when it comes to writing down practice plans, I need specifics. Don’t say, practice the Rachmaninov; tell me how. What exactly happens when you sit down at the piano and open the music?

What exactly does a month of subtraction and not endless, spinning, frenetic multiplication look like?

For starters, there are plenty of non-negotiables that must be factored in: there are a lot of carols to be sung, a sugar plum fairy to be launched, Jingle Bells to be teased out of clumsy little fingers. Candles must be lit, envelopes addressed, holiday cards mailed. There will still be laundry to do and meals to prepare. The cats need to be fed. Every day.

Last January I had breakfast with a friend. We had just been to an early morning yoga class and were catching up over eggs and lattés. She was venting a bit, worn out after a tiresome holiday season with too many gigs and too many visitors. I listened, all too sympathetic. It’s too easy to get to January and wonder what happened to the magic of the season and the chance at having our souls restored once again. We all need this spiritual reset, and perhaps have come to expect that the holidays should offer us some annual renewal.

On this first day of Advent, with the season of Christmas still ahead of us, I wonder if this isn’t the time to ask ourselves not what we want this season, but what our souls and spirits might need. And then to pursue this intention with fervor and determination. I suspect my “subtraction, not addition” thought was born from a sort of exhaustion of expectations, a gnawing sense that I can’t stomach a month of non-stop sugar or glitter, and a growing distrust of a culture that suggests that a red bow has meaning.

Yesterday Teddy came running into his lesson. Teddy is eight, with boundless energy and endless opinions. He is either very enthusiastic or very not. Yesterday he was bursting with excitement.

“I want to start with my Christmas songs!” (Teddy likes to dictate the structure of his piano lessons. Most of the time, I go along.) Sounds good, I said. What song are we going to start with? “Joy to the World and then We Wish You and then I know what my new song should be: Hark! The Herald Angels Sing. I think it would be good for me.”

That last pronouncement made me smile, but also puzzled me a bit. What would he think was particularly good for him about ‘Hark! The Herald’? The all-important dotted-quarter/eighth-note rhythmic challenges found in so many Christmas tunes? The practice time spent dancing with angels?

We need silence to know what we think, Shirley Hazzard reminds us. I wonder if we were willing to turn off the distractions for a minute, to remove ourselves from the bustle and hustle and spin, and to listen deeply into the silence we’d might not only figure out what we think, but also what might be good for us. Hark! The season is upon us. The silence beckons.