Ode To Silence.

I live with silence an old friend at home; no talk back radio for me; no television channels; no talking on a smartphone, only a proven landline. Thus my days go by in pauses, restarts, and quiet. I have the ideal conditions for reading and meditation about the silence of eternity or whatever the situation inside the red-brick house or out in the flower garden, which sometimes looks perfectly weedless, like heaven. I used to play more records than now; I don't miss them; At night, I switch on a dehumidifier whose whirr is pleasant and it puts me to sleep like an on-again off-again lullaby. I no longer have to wake up to a buzzing alarm going off early. When I hear muzak in shopping malls, I'm thankful for the classroom where the only sounds were the students' various voices who were either talking to one another or making choices to answer my leading questions: I did not beg the question.