Listen

I once gave a lesson called “listen: a creative exercise”. It was about as being aware of the wider world, the sounds of the children at crèche, the sound of the lift, the drama of the wind and so on. You can’t really design a game world without wider awareness, you can’t really write without that wider awareness; you need to know the soft hollow howl that spirals around the bath overflow, in the winter, whilst you lay among the bubbles.

Listen illustrated by AndyArtisand

Think of the sounds of childhood, the creaking, the gurgling of the boiler, the opening and closing of doors and the faint hum of the TV, sounds that tell you the house is still awake and you, you must stop being interested in those sounds. Stop being interested and sleep. They fade out into a watery bubble until a cat cries in the garden and beneath the blankets, your mind’s eye pictures an urban baby Moses bundled in the light of The Little Match Stick Girl. The cat baby bundle drifts away as you fall into child- like dreams.

I remember the sound of silence; a throbbing foreboding sound that I had experienced in nightmares: as a teenager it haunted me. It was the sound of alone, of isolation, of not belonging. It was inescapable and could not be drowned out. The phone would seem shrill against the thickness of the silence, the cassette player powerless to dent the fog of silence. I now believe it to be the hiss of the radiator combined with the beating of my heart and general teenage angst.

Until recently I've liked to listen to Radio 4, documentaries and comedies, but my son has the gift of talking over the punch line, so now we play music instead. No one listens to the music, they just talk. It seems to me there is a lot of talking and very little listening. So often we hear politicians “talk” they say, “If you will let me finish.” Then they repeat the importance of having a debate. I don’t see how you can debate if you don’t listen. Listening is being smothered by the urge to speak, what is said is becoming unimportant, talking has turned into a rhythm, repeating things in threes, blaming one another and shouting, shouting positive statements of defiance “We will do this and We will do that and We WILL SAVE YOU.” No one is listening they are just waiting for their chance to speak, not to reply, just to make more noise, because when you break it down no one is even saying anything anymore, nothing new at least.

Now I don’t listen to the radio so much, but stay in the kitchen with the window open. I can hear the wind, the rain and  the soft breathing of two dogs. Against that once doom laden sound of the radiator hiss I weave. Or maybe I crochet, I’m not really sure what it’s called, I’m making a basket from plastic carrier bags and I’m listening. After a while the weaving and repetition and the sounds of outside all become one rhythm and they still the chatter of my mind. I am meditating.