Quiet / Silence

When was the last time you experienced an extended period of silence? Not the quiet where the radio is softly playing in the next room and the neighbor's dog isn't barking at the moment. I mean when there is no sound and everything is still.

I'm just back from 4 days in the foothills of the Ozarks, where for hours all I heard was an occasional fish or frog jumping in the lake or one cicada saying hey to another. I never heard the guest in the next room. Seriously, no one walking in the hallway, taking a shower or blaring the TV. No sense of anyone around me. Even our workshop's topic led to classroom silence as we participants dabbed colors on watercolor paper and sketched indoors and out. I felt like I was on a silent retreat and that became the best part of the week.

Quiet means 'marked by little or no activity, disturbance or tumult; calm; secluded.' Silence is 'the absence of any sound; stillness; to put doubt and fear to rest.' As I pondered the difference between quiet and silence, I realized my spirit needed to quiet so I could experience the silence. I reflected that in the last several months I have been deliberate about both silence and quiet, something quite different for someone who for most of her life has had music playing in the background. I didn't know I was preparing for the gift of four nights and three days of calm, stillness and seclusion.

How do quiet and silence play out in your life? Could you use one or both a little more or a little less? Does such a thought delight or scare you? Take a quiet minute to think about that and if you'd like to do anything about it today or this week. For me, I'm planning to keep some intentional times of quiet and silence. I had fairly low expectations for a class called "Life is a canvas" where the theme was watercolor and sketchbook journaling because I have little patience for or skill in watercolor. I didn't expect to come home with anything framable. What I didn't know was that I would come home in a peaceful frame of mind. That's even better.

Marilyn

The Games We Play

When I was in first grade my favorite board game was Sorry. I enjoyed sliding my Hershey-kiss-shaped widget into my opponent's to send them back home while saying the name of the game with much enthusiasm. Mr. Potato Head and Monopoly were ok, but by junior high we were all playing Clue. There was the wrench and other weapons and great characters like Miss Scarlett and Colonel Mustard all closed up in the mansion with what seemed like limitless possibilities for fun murder. Then my family discovered Rack-O, a not as well known game requiring players to arrange 10 cards in numerical order. Trust me, it's not as easy as it sounds. In my 30s it was Mastermind, Boggle and Scrabble. And that's where I stopped with board games.

Game shows on TV evolved from Queen for a Day, which aired mid-morning in the 1950s, where a woman had the opportunity to win a washing machine, to Who Wants to be a Millionaire broadcast almost every night in prime time. Maude, a friend of my mother's, was on some show in those early years and was thrilled when she won a pair of suede shoes. In between was I've Got a Secret, Pyramid, Match Game, Password and, of course, Jeopardy, amidst scores of others featured in reruns on the Game Network 24/7.

Now we don't need a board to play a board game. We play on our computers and phones, either individually or against the computer or 'live' online with an opponent known only by a chosen persona. The ease of access, the need to fill each minute, the soothing affects of repeated motions, the addictiveness of the challenge, the world into which a gamer enters is interesting and alluring. Games can engage the marginal or different learner, teach us all strategy and keeps the mind stimulated. They provide the opportunity to learn how to be a gracious winner or loser. I learned to count playing cards and often played canasta, pinochle, rummy or cribbage with my parents after homework was done. In my early years it is probable that my adult opponents let me win, but mine was a competitive family and I soon had to stand on my own.

Ludology is a fairly young discipline examining games, design and players and their role in society and culture. Anthropologists can probably tell us something as well. I imagine that after a hard day of hunting, gathering and cooking our distant ancestors gathered around a fire and some played a type of game with pebbles or teeth. I have faithfully moved a box containing many of those old favorites games from house to house, although I can't remember the last time I played any of them. Maybe in some retirement facility in my future there will be neighbors who will want to gather around a fire and revisit some of those classics. I only hope none of them cheat! 

Marilyn

Shhhh...did you know?

There is a fine line between talking and gossiping. We can share information we know about someone in a caring manner or we can delight in the telling of a juicy story that presents a colleague in a bad light. Along that spectrum of conversations are words such as chit chat, rumor, scandal, hearsay, backbiting, tattling, evil tongue, grapevine, dishing, secrets and small talk. Behind those words are emotions such as fear and anger, love and concern and motivators such as the need to belong. Consequences of those words can be reputations, judgements and exculsion.

Gossip is defined as idle chat about the personal or private affairs of others. Does that mean every time we talk about someone else we are gossiping? Is it all in the approach or in the intent? Is it the responsibility of the teller to determine if this is a healthy and helpful conversation or is the listener an equal partner in defining the tone and the outcome?

The origin of the word comes from centuries ago when giving birth involved the women of the village surrounding the one in labor, and, having many hours in which to talk, talking is what they did. I guess the implication is that the women who were unable to be present got dished. "Can you believe that Myrtle isn't here?" (No matter that she gave birth just last week or her husband was killed in a raid on a neighboring town or her six children are all under age 8 or their cow just died.) I'm sure each woman had a turn at missing a birth, so they probably would have agreed with Will Rogers who said that the only time people dislike gossip is when you gossip about them.

If a car arrived in the driveway of the house across the street, my mother was at the window to see who came calling. Was that a concern for safety or nosiness? Was the litany of who was, who wasn't in church, what they were wearing or who said what that was part of our Sunday dinner, simply typical family small talk, all innocent and normal, or did it encompass something darker? I have one friend who considers most mentions of other people gossip. From how she approaches this, I gather that any discussion of outsiders in her large family must have been considered bad, so boy, would they have been uncomfortable in my house!

We all want to belong. It's human nature - for that matter, in much of the animal kingdom as well - to do what we can to feel included. And, if that means tattling to feel superior, if that means breaking a trust, if that means not speaking up, well, we've all done it. "What was she thinking?" two women might look at one another and say as a good friend walks away in ill-fitting and unflattering attire. In the South, one would add, "Bless her heart." One employee might casually say, "We need to have the meeting at 10am because Jim needs to be there and he is always late." Such a statement can put one employee down and create complicity when everyone else nods.

There is now an entire industry devoted to this element of human nature. Just google the word gossip and see what comes up. It didn't start with yellow journalism which may have evolved from the gossip column in mainstream newspapers that legitimized our wanting to be in the know about the lives of celebrities. Perhaps it started with Eve when she tried to wheedle her way out of being on the hot seat, or when leaves and animal skins started the options of fashion. Today the internet and 24/7 news has moved and muddied that fine line that has always been present, just shifting in different cultures and eras.

I struggle with all of this. I think part of it comes from growing up in a family with secrets and from being the only child in the house. Not have siblings my age to gossip with and share secrets with meant I could only do that with friends. Today I have one set of friends with whom I actually draw an imaginary sign across my chest and say 'gossip' when sharing some news of the 'did you know' variety, so at least I'm self aware. Barbara Walters said "Show me someone who isn't interested in gossip and I'll show you someone who isn't interested in people." I guess some of us are more interested than others. 

Maarilyn

Leftovers

This morning my car still had a faint odor of last night's dinner from the diner. The lingering smell of liver was a reminder of a pleasant meal out with a friend and some lunch or dinner early this week could feature the remnants in the doggie bag.

My guess is, however, if history is an indication of future behavior, that I will enjoy the untouched baked potato and the liver will end up in the garbage. Somehow I never get around to enjoying leftover liver. While some things are even better a day or two later, stews and soups for example, other foods, like salads already doused with dressing, or for me, liver, are not. 

Leftovers are often planned. I just made a pork roast that will last all week. There's nothing like that first turkey sandwich on the Friday after Thanksgiving. We know which favorite restaurants serve enough food for two or even three meals. Maggiano's has a menu where you can order one entree for dinner and one to go at no additional cost. That's a different kind of leftover program!

As the kitchen kop at the office, I have to keep reminding people to toss their leftovers. The staff has gotten very good at bringing food for only one day, but occasionally it's too much or folks end up going out for lunch and forget they have a container in the fridge. Too soon it becomes that mysterious science experiment in a baggie at the back on the top shelf. Leftovers gone bad.

There are other kinds of leftovers. In a sense, the clothes and items we take to Goodwill are our extras or fashion left over from the last year or decade. I spent part of yesterday at the Kane County flea market, looking over hundreds of leftover items ranging from duct tape from an order too large for a shipment, to antique mirrors, treasures found stuck away in a basement or attic, leftovers of a lifetime. I bought an old shoe shine box, a leftover of an era gone by.

My poker group has about ten dollars in the chip box. There is a bag of coins and bills whose number somehow increases after each party because there is a little leftover once everyone is reimbursed what they are due. Perhaps we are not the best accountants. Soon we'll buy a bottle of wine to have with our meal, knowing we've all contributed somehow. You and I have stood baffled when there is one thing left in our hands after we thought we'd counted so carefully and have to retrace our actions to see what we missed. 

 

Some people, like the generation who lived through the depression, or immigrants who arrived with nothing, have a hard time throwing even bad leftovers away. We can all struggle with getting rid of Items leftover from a relationship or an era of one's life. How many times did you faithfully move your college textbooks or t-shirt?

There are days we all exhaust our resources of emotion and energy and have nothing left to give. And we've experienced times when we need to find some anyway. In relationships one party can feel as though all they get are the feelings and time and attention the other has leftover after dealing with everything else in his or her life. I've been part of choruses or groups where during the rehearsal the director tells us to save it for the performance, that is we need to make sure we have enthusiasm and talent left for the actual show. 

 

Often when I am writing, I have phrases, sentences or whole paragraphs leftover once I piece what I want together. For this topic I've notes on leftover nuclear weapons, trash after an outdoor concert, sports paraphanalia after a team doesn't win, screws after putting something back together, well, there were a lot of leftovers, which I guess is quite apt, and as with all leftovers, I struggle with what to do with them. May any leftovers you find in your life this week be easily handled, and, perhaps, even tasty!

Marilyn