‘The Hermit’ and a very female search for slivers of silence

An exploration of the need for quiet

I treated myself to some gothic looking tarot recently. (Dark Wood by Sasha Graham and Abigail Larson.) Anyone who used to follow me on Twitter, will know I have several decks.

I tend not to use them for divination purposes but rather as inspiration or prompts to converse with myself.

The first card I was instantly drawn to, was this one.

The Hermit.

I loved the very feminine interpretation of a traditionally male card.

That in itself, I found to be revealing.

Why is quiet time alone considered more of a male pursuit? One could say, privilege.

‘Silence’ feels like a dirty word for a woman of my years.

After all a woman in her forties is heart of the family, apprenticing elder of the fabled village.

We’re supposed to want to be with people. To talk, right?

No.

Or should I say, not always.

And I’m voicing that for any other woman who feels the same, because it’s taboo to say so.

Our childhood books were full of older male characters with a ‘study’ or a ‘library’. Men who could not be disturbed, who ‘needed’ to retreat. Uncle Quentin in ‘Famous Five’ springs to mind. The professor in ‘The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe’ is another. Less so with older women. Where did they go? Was this same need even acknowledged in them?

One of the prices of motherhood, is the sacrifice of privacy. Or at least, for a good few years.

It starts with the birth.

“An audience with…” would be an apt title if it were a TV show. The most vulnerable thing a woman can do, that was traditionally done with help of a single knowledgeable female, has been hijacked beyond recognition by patriarchy. It’s become a popcorn worthy spectacle for dad, a team of medics and a couple of students thrown in for good measure.

This is then followed up with months of a baby at breast or on hip, who then becomes toddler in tow. Every mother remembers those days she literally could not pee without someone popping in for a chat or clamping fast onto her leg. It is a sweet surrender in the name of establishing secure attachment, but a surrender none the less.

But wanting a little space to oneself has uglysistered into the brattish sounding ‘Me Time’. A marketer’s wet dream of spa days and pamper treatments serves to ridicule a genuine wish for solitude, reducing it to a penchant for scented candles and reflection journals.

No. I just want some bloody quiet!

It feels unfemale to admit;

“I enjoy my own company. I like silence”

But how I do!

How I relish an empty house to myself!

People leave, and I unwrap the layers of noise like a naughty chocolate orange. Paring back each intrusive interruption one by one.

Music off? Check

Washing machine cycle finished? Check

Phone on silent? Check

Windows closed? Check

I take pleasure in curating an audio striptease.

Whittling it down, until finally, tantalisingly, all that remains are the scant nipple tassels of sound!

Aka the faint bleep of my fridge…..

I savour it like an invisible man’s shrill tin whistle, before starting to feel guilty, because, well….. so many want company, don’t they?

Apparently.

As my mind drowns in images of quivering JR Hartleys in high back chairs opening a solitary Christmas card, I remind myself that the wrong company or forced socialising is surely akin to a goth being made to bedroom in busy fuchsia wall paper or an involuntary trip to IKEA if you’re chintzy….

‘Nothing’ is my favourite sound of all.

I think I first fell in love with it one afternoon in Reception Class.

The brunette bobbed Mrs Williams - who would deliberately misread me from the register as ‘Julie Belinda Georgina’ because she knew I so desperately wanted middle names - would patrol the classroom on a Friday afternoon, before ‘Story Time’.

“I want……”

She’d announce, breaking her sentence in two like a KitKat.

“………to be able to hear a pin drop!”

This was somewhat ambitious for a class of unruly 4 and 5 year olds. She didn’t say it in an arsey way, however, but rather the mystical manner of a conjuror. Some people have a way about them that makes you want what they want. They weave delicious dance into their demand so it becomes shared desire.

As she surveyed the faces in that room, each of us keenly spooning the syrup of silence into our young ears, we children were mesmerised as the troll-fearing trip trap of her cloppy court shoes was replaced by an intentional, engaging tip-toe.

With noise taken away, our classmates’ eyes were wider and brighter, milk teeth felt wobblier in our red mouths, the little girl’s hair in front looked that bit more enticing to plait. In short, we became acutely in tune with our other senses.

Finally satisfied we’d ‘got it’, to culminate this building drama, she’d then take out an actual pin from her pocket, hold it up with exaggerated mime à la Marcel Marceau and we’d watch in awe as she cast it like seed to wind, on to the absorbing fuzz of the carpeted book corner.

The whispers would start

“I heard it drop!”

“I think I did…..”

In turn, we each became an excitable Bagpuss mouse and she our stabilising Madeleine.

Our lesson in appreciating silence was complete. Job done.

To be afraid of silence is to be afraid of one’s self. Yet, where can most of us go to find a quality of quiet on par with the level our ancestors would have experienced pre industrial revolution? Sometimes I try to recreate it by donning noise cancelling ear defenders but dislike the way they grip my head like a giant pair of tweezers.

And then there is the other sound.

No matter how much we cultivate our physical environment, we can never remove ourselves from the most unwelcome noise.

That is, our own chattering mind.

For me it will always be best illustrated by ’The Scream’ by Edvard Munch. Who hasn’t felt what is depicted in that strong, unsettling image? Some speculate it represents his reaction to his sister being committed to a lunatic asylum. It is a stark reminder that even when alone, the incessant jabber in our heads is a constant companion, sometimes to the point of painful madness.

Can we ever escape that?

Quietening one’s mind is a near impossible task. Once you actively instruct yourself not to do something, of course, you are compelled to do it all the more. I try ‘observing’ this, as mindfulness techniques suggest, but often that then starts another internal dialogue.

“Oh….so you’re watching me chatter now, are you? Thought you’d have a look, did you?”

Suddenly, I’m my own voyeur, viewing something I didn’t even want to see. Shit! I’m Peeping Tom in the dogger park of my own mind. No! No! I DON’T want to watch…..

Just fuck off!

Oops, I’m thinking again….

And round and round we go.

And finally I’ve had enough.

Silence is a friend for so long but then it becomes an enemy.

I ‘dress’ the room in layers of audio again before they get back. Clothes back on, slut! And I thought you loved me!

Will anyone notice I’m having this illicit affair?

Something tells me, she’ll keep quiet.