a Time of Quiet?

Lately I have taken to noise. Well, more than lately. Certainly since I got home from the hospital after being split the hell open. And there has been acceleration to a now constant TV on or something streaming off of the internets. Sometimes nice noise like the smoky jazz channel I found on iTunes. Or a ball game. More often bad noise like the ineptly inarticulate and disingenuous skip bayliss or his screaming sidekick (as a coping skill I always read when this particular noise is on, or open mail, or fix breakfast, or do physical therapy homework, or housework, as if to say, Well I'm not really listening to that crap) stephen a smith. There are other similars, but must I name them all?

This feels very much like a 5th Step. Such a weight lifted. And yet I blush. This is some shameful shit I confess to. And there is more. Much. Podcasts while taking a shower. Or to go off to sleep. Do I really need Keith Law's spoken (24 minutes) opinion on the Red Sox 2012 draft class? Or to hear Danny Ainge guess whether KG will be back? Or SportsCenter in virtual endless loop?

I have always felt a sadness for those who needed noise. The ineffectual treatment/medicine for a fear of aloneness. What is more natural than alone? (who said the only two things man has in common is that we all come in and go out alone?) I have treasured the alone and the quiet, the calm or unease. The comfort in knowing the sound of my voice, the pathways from my head into my body. The necessities of this. The assurance. Pleasure.

And so now it has become The Time of Noise. I did not read about this in Iron John; it is nothing like the leaves or the ashes, a necessary, if unpleasant, step. So clearly it is optional, unnecessary. Clearly it is me avoiding hearing me, what I have learned from my adventures, the time spent so close to the Great Void. Clearly it is weakness and ought be excised. Discarded. Rebuked. Throttled. (Others, more healthy others, might argue it need be loved into submission; I am not in such a frame - who could be in my noisy condition?)

But now I am so sick of the other voices. They no longer comfort or even ably distract. Fuck me, they so annoy. Christ, I feel like Holden Caulfield on something. Christ, I'll say that again for emphasis, and because it feels good to say. No more of those bastards (and they are very much bastards! they must know they sow poison). Aside: reminds me of Zamyatin personifying characters in such an original odd way - surely he would refer to them in poisonous terms throughout: venom and dripping fangs and slippery and slimy and snakelike and much better than I can grab at this minute; Read We if you get a chance.

I feel ready to gather the quiet with both arms. To sail with it. To soak. To suffer (well, as someone I know likes to say: the pain is mandatory, the suffering optional - so maybe not). To choose noise like one chooses company and wine and groceries. To listen to what I have to say (even though I most don't want this). I am on record.