Sometimes, it takes the removal of something for your found item to emerge. For me, it’s rediscovering quiet. Back from a week away, all together, the house is quiet.
I notice it.
A week in a big city – much bigger than ours. A flat at the back of a building – quiet, yes, but there are also sirens. Kids in the courtyard at the back, sometimes. The sound of the lift going up and down the building.
It’s not that home is noiseless. But it is pretty quiet where we live, certainly at night, more so as the weather grows colder and people are inside more.
Back to last week. For various reasons, I slept in the sitting room of the flat. Behind me,
a clock that ticked (not good with that for getting to sleep). On the other side of the room, the fridge, the boiler…Even the goldfish was determined to make some noise.
So coming back to a quieter room to sleep in, that helped. I could lie there and practically feel the quiet steal round the room.
Holiday time is often wonderful – and can also be tricky if you are an introvert. You are with the people you love – and you are WITH them, because you are soaking it all up together.
Add in a separate destination which is packed with noise and movement (more on that separately), and other people, plus further people on trains and metro platforms and at ticket barriers and all the rest.
Let’s just say that there is less space for thinking amid the hum.
Today, it was back to the term-time routine – which meant getting the house to myself again in the daytime. Add in ongoing drizzle, and even the rumble of buses fades in volume.
Walking along fairly empty roads, seeing the raindrops on bushes as the sun caught them…all of this shouted quiet. (In a none too oppressing way, of course.)
It might be hearing your thoughts again. It might be remembering your way of taking stock of the day – the ups, the downs. It might just be not having to talk to anyone for a bit.
Normal days have plenty of talking, of course. That’s fine. There are bus rides and homework discussions and clattering of cutlery in the dishwasher and all the usual soundtrack of life. Just without all the extras.
Found items aren’t just about the new (though they can be). Sometimes they are about the familiar reasserting itself – and our sigh of relief as it does.