Fifty-second Entry

Thursday, May 7th, 2020

A chilly mid-spring morning. Happily, the heat is still on in my building. The seemingly endless range of subtly different shades of spring green—preserved by the cold days—will begin to diminish, even to the keenest eye. Things change. That is the nature of our lives.

This morning, I sat with a meditation group from Vermont via Zoom. A helicopter with poorly tuned blades soiled the peaceful quiet on my end. Its energy, or at least its sound, took up a lot of space. Again, I realized that the city’s noise is returning and that the most distinct part of the Covid era – the telling silence – is fading.

Sound expands to fill quiet spaces much as light washes away darkness; they do not really coexist. Sound outside our homes is one of the many things beyond our control. There are earplugs and windows to close, but the sounds do not go away. There is little choice but to work with it. How we adapt reveals who we are.