My innocent and naive childhood years were spent in Alaska just South of Fairbanks on Eielson Air Force Base. Most of my memories take place outside, from winter to summer, and everything in between. What I don’t remember, is ever hearing silence. Winters were filled with snow machining and the slow but steady traffic that occurred on base. Summers were spent doing endless amounts of camping, but as a family of 5 we were always making noise. Even while fishing I remember the sound of the casting and reeling of our rods and old men cracking old men jokes on neighboring boats. In-between all of that was the constant reminder of living on a base: Fighter jets, a noise that as a military brat, I loved hearing and still do to this day.
When I moved to SE Virginia during my pubescent teen years, the noises changed, but I still never remember silence. Living in the suburbs of Hampton Roads meant the endless noise of man-made sound pollution, but I was fortunate enough to live in a smaller town moderately separated from it all. Our house was situated at the end of our road, nestled gently beside an inlet that led to the ocean.
Spring and summer were filled with crickets, the moaning of bull frogs, and the constant hum of motor boats cruising in and out of our small inlet. Noise from our distant neighbors echoed across the water as the sounds bounced back and forth like unanswered conversation. Most of my winter memories are on the ski slopes, listening to my snowboard carving fresh corduroy, the chairlifts crank and pop as they passed over us, and the sound of starting buzzers and cheering when I began slalom racing in college.
My world was rarely, if ever, silent. Not the real silence at least. The kind of silence that is so quiet it’s almost deafening. The kind where when you stand still, you hear your own ears ringing. The kind of silence that is peaceful, but at the same time, terrifying.
After spending almost 10 years in Virginia, I left the big cities and began seasonal work in South-Central Idaho. Most of my summer was spent in the desert. I camped on the job, miles away from the nearest city, and on the weekends I hiked and backpacked the majestic Sawtooth Mountains. Desolate dirt roads, high alpine lakes, and the persistent smell of Ponderosa Pine entered my soul and never left, even when I did go into town.
I had found a peacefulness and serenity I had never experienced anywhere else and for the first time I thought I had experienced true silence. But as I sat to enjoy a peaceful lake on one of my many hikes, I realized I had only escaped the man-made noises. Aspen trees shook in the wind, birds and squirrels exchanged gentle conversation, and the streams gurgled with the snow melt that continued well into October.
My world was not silent.
With my seasonal work ending in Idaho, I began new work in Southern Alaska on the Kenai Peninsula. My long plane ride, filled with a constant coughing, crying, and whispering, left me wondering if I would find the same peace I had discovered in Idaho. My job, ironically enough, was going to be to listen. To explore the different parts of the Kenai NWR and simply listen.
I lived in town. Snow machines, snow plows, and airplanes were a constant reminder of civilization. Darkness came earlier than I remembered, but it never masked the noise. Even on the job, I was surrounded by an uncanny amount of sound. Packs shifting, snowshoes crunching snow, the heavy breathing that inevitable occurred from our winter hikes. And during snow machine trips there was always the loud hum of the machine's engine.
Silence felt impossible.
When I wasn't in the field, I was stuck inside, listening. We recorded sound for days at a time, sometimes months, and it was my job to listen to every single recording and document what I heard. Snow machines, airplanes, ravens, chickadees and wind were all common occurrences that came to me as no surprise. They were all things I heard on a regular basis.
What did surprise me though, was the amount of silence I documented, which easily made up the majority of the "noise".
On our recordings though, silence wasn't recorded as silence, but instead as white noise. A jargon of sounds unpleasant to the ear. Silence created the same noise as a TV not on a receiving channel. A blur of absolutely nothing. It caught me off guard. Silence had a sound.
So I made it my goal to find this silence that I heard. On our next outing, once my coworker and I reached the end of our hike, we sat, closed our eyes, and we listened. It was the dead of winter. Early January, no wind, but a bitter negative 23 degrees below Fahrenheit. I was convinced we were the only animals stupid enough to be on the rocky outcrop, exposed.
I heard nothing.
There was no white noise like the recording suggested. But instead, it was like for a moment my entire world was paralyzed. All my senses ceased to exist.
I heard nothing. I smelled nothing. I tasted nothing. I saw nothing. I felt nothing.
And that's when the silence became deafening.
I began to hear a ringing in my ears. It reminded me of how I felt after loud concerts, only there was no music. My entire body shook from the feeling of my heart beating and I could literally feel my breathing slow. I opened my eyes, but my entire world was frozen. A photographic image in my head that even as I looked around, didn't move.
I had experienced silence.
