What I Hear

I live on 11th street in Greenwich Village, Manhattan. Upon doing this exercise, I have realized that my neighborhood is exactly what I have known it to be all this time;quiet, residential, secluded and a nice little getaway from crazy city life. I stood outside my apartment building for an hour, but didn't hear much. The most prevalent noise was the old woman who lives on the ground floor of my building, talking to herself in tongues as per usual. After tuning that out, I began to hear the light wind rustle the leaves on the trees and irritate those who felt their hairstyle may be in turmoil. I could hear the cars on the two avenues closest to me, but those sounds were faint as usual. There is minimal car honking down here because there is not much traffic. The strangest thing I noticed is the sound of my own silence. When one is so used to loud, persistent noise- the after effects can be described as almost a white noise. I have noticed that the absence of sound is sound in and of itself. Towards the end of my early afternoon experimenting, the NYU classes began to let out and the streets began to become congested with  college students, disrupting my pseudo-serenity. As I have noted after deleting my Facebook and other social media accounts,being disconnected from the world is definitely a meditative practice (which is why it was a bummer to have to go back upstairs and answer an hours worth of text messages). I also noted while outside that in order to listen to silence, one must erase their thoughts and inner dialogue beforehand. This project taught me that being disconnected from the social world for as little as an hour can make one realize just how many unnoticed sounds there are. Although I didn't mention them, I could hear birds, friendly conversation, children laughing and parents teasing. Sound is a lot deeper than just some waves and crests.