Modern Lives Part III:The Language of Nature & the Power of Quiet – a Private Space for Connection
As the paradigms of our new reality shift around us, the changes we’ve become used to seeing in our surroundings begin to reflect in the linguistic world around us. Jera Toporis explores the ways in which the Covid-19 pandemic has begun to influence the way we interact with language: through a triptych focusing on the language of our new reality; the development of language in isolation and the role of silence in shaping language. We end this triad with a reflection on “The Language of Nature & the Power of Quiet – a Private Space for Connection”.
The Language of Nature & the Power of Quiet – a Private Space for Connection
The end of October is approaching fast, and I am gradually getting used to the peace and quiet of my current residence. Do I miss going to face-to-face lectures, traveling to any place I’d wish and grabbing a drink with my pals? Definitely. Yet, it’s been quite a while since I’ve been able to disconnect from the sometimes excessive but at all times present urban noise to such a great extent and it felt very odd at first. Silence has grown to become unnatural even for me, a creative introvert who enjoys getting lost in her own little world. But after spending the last couple of months away from the busy areas and hopping to the city only once or twice per month for groceries or other adult things, I’ve come to a realisation – I’m not a very big fan of the metropolitan buzz.
Sure enough, roaring streets represent everyday reality for most of us, but what happens when we suddenly get the chance to engage with the earth language, someplace quiet and away from the city fuss? I always liked that wee quiet time of the day when I could put my overflowing ideas on a piece of paper, compose them into an amateur instrumental work, or even go and have a try (and fail) at painting and drawing. In Glasgow and Granada, though, I always had to wait until the late-night hours kicked in and the clamour would be eliminated or at least present to a much lesser extent. It was only in those latest months of social isolation spent in my childhood home in Slovenia that I’ve been able to get some incredibly good rest for a change and not worry about becoming a night owl all for the sake of some short hours of creativity.
All this led me to think about the following: Why is noise so tiring? If it frequently proves to be so stressful, could we eliminate it? Would we also eliminate our communication system, i.e. languages, with that? Could we exist in a space with no sounds? And, just why exactly is silence so important for our minds and bodies?
Luckily, the pandemic compensated me with a positive outlook, which proved to be an incredibly rare and rewarding occasion – I got to experience the sounds of nature in the plain centre of Granada where, by the third week of estado de alarma when life stopped and traffic vanished from the streets, I found myself waking up to the birds chirping on my window at 7 am. I knew those unique moments wouldn’t last forever, but I had no clue that this experience would later serve as a preparation of my present observation. In other words, it created a base for my then-future project: a month of mindfulness, starting September 1.
As a way of exploring this relation between noise, silence and our wellbeing, I decided to start practicing yoga and meditation, which took up at least two hours of my time every day. I have to admit that being alone in silence, accompanied merely by my own thoughts, felt very uncomfortable at first – sometimes overwhelming, even – and I couldn’t manage to concentrate properly. I had very little patience and got distracted by everything, just as I normally would when living in big cities where finding silence was a very tricky thing. Then, I realised: I am the kind of person who needs background noise, I just seem to be really picky when it comes to it. Fortunately, getting through the pandemic within a green blotch of nothing-around-for-miles became much easier when I started to become more aware of the language of nature surrounding me and applying it to my own being.
So, after a good few weeks of daily yoga sessions, meditations and other forms of eliminating artificial sounds, I started to identify very strongly with Gordon Hempton’s statement: “Silence is the poetics of a space, what it means to be in a place.” Day after day, I was making slow progress in becoming more comfortable with myself, at ease with everything and everyone around me, and present within the moment. Nature became my muzak, that background ‘music’ to everything I might be doing, and I’ve grown to become more and more conscious of it. At last, I discovered the power of quiet – it guides us through the process of eliminating distractions while we work on building ourselves and strengthening our concentration.
Today, I’m embracing this ‘fragmentary’ silence not only as my friend in times of coronavirus, but also as a creative platform for multilingual conversations with myself and a playground for my ideas before I vocally present them to others. I just think that while it is important for us to look after our physical health, we should also make sure to take care of our mental health – even when you’re denied social contact, you’re never alone and we’ve just been given a perfect opportunity to grow and thrive not only virtually, but also in the very real social sphere that awaits us once this is over. I, for one, know that I’m taking this chance that the new reality is giving me to phase out of the fabricated noise, return to my roots and connect with myself more than ever before.
