The Full Range of Silence

A Beginner's Guide for Circles & Blue

“And they sigh into one another—the blues and the noise.” ¹

I’ve come to believe in silence. Of things that could be, of things that won’t ever be. Of things that were, of memories that hold us in place. In silence, we realize two things: beauty and hopelessness. Two things that, like extinction, have rarely solved invention. A crucible—a container and a test at once. I have a hard time not caressing regrets. Of what others say and what I tell myself. If all roads lead somewhere, I suspect they lead to silence and variations on the shade of blue. Shush blue, bright blue, stark blue, distant blue….wishful quiet silent blue.

I tell myself a variety of things. Of how to be. How best to hide what I most believe. I toe the line between science and art. Promote the power of words and the formation of stories. The idolization of fable. All while ignoring the truth in myths. I may be a closet extrovert. I’ll open up for an hour or two, but that’s just what others think. I prefer to confess my sins to my cat while looking out the window toward morning sunlight—all the better if the flavor of strong coffee is fresh in my mouth. From this, you might wonder, what comes next? Oh, there are still places to go. The running stories I tell me of myself, deep inside my head. Thoughtful, slow, patient and curious. Deep thoughts, so they say, older than I understand pirouette inside me. Ideas and considerations steeped in spring creek currents, coddling the colors of brown trout—secrets I will never share except, perhaps, to the wooing of a Great Horned Owl. Ethereal creatures, I believe, mostly made of ether—perfect matches for sincerity. I trust this because, as Jim Harrison quipped, and I believe, “reality is an aggregate of the perceptions of all creatures.”

It’s hard to explain, but once, not long ago, I figured I’d describe the color blue, and ten minutes in, I was speechless. I learned a bent note is a blue note. I believe the play of night and day is a hinge between dark blue and invisible blue—deep space encroaching, lowering, sinking to meet its twin beneath the ground, day after day. A bit of a reach, but my suspicions debate this: wind moves leaves, or more likely, leaves move and the wind begins. It can’t be either or neither. Everything is being bent into curations of something blue. What do I mean? It’s like Bur Oak tree roots, patient in some meager savannah waiting for rainfall to know where to go next. This becomes a clue: the best way to explore is through slowly trusting. It’s your fault if you want any of this to be rushed.

That phrase, then: Slow down, you’re running out of time is not entirely a pantomime. To me, it’s proof that things reside in extremes. A quote from Peter Kaminsky is just right, balancing speed and color and creative satisfaction without being too obvious: “Rotten grapes (wine), moldy milk (cheese) and ripened meat (ham) make our lives more interesting.”

Again and again, everywhere I look I see more blue and wish for less sound. I recall sacred geometry and proportions, golden means and such. Introvert expert Susan Cain once wrote, “We have two ears and one mouth and we should use them proportionally.”

Maybe I just want less as a need to embrace the sympathetic. Almost the only thing we share with others is sympathy, layers of regret and sorrow, jokes and travels, transitions of the extreme—forlorn shadings of indigo. The would of, could of, should of blend of blue. We tend to downplay joy as showing off. Personally, I’m trying to lean toward what could go right. Good lord, suddenly, this feels too close to a confession. I’m going to return to correct proportions: two ears, two eyes, one mouth.

I look to the sky, and way up high, probably three wind currents between us, spot a familiar V-shape of Canada Geese, silent as a holy night—faraway wildness. Then, ten seconds later, a gaggle of their compatriots, not seventy-five feet above my head, sound more like the wailing hoofs of elephants stomping—compounding honks bang away at the air. Somewhere in between these two variations of the V-formation rests the full range of silence. Close and sincere. Far away and vague. Left behind and lied to. Coming on with hope. Always the in-between’s leaving me to orbit. Like the difference between virtuous and sane. I prefer the sane. I find the virtuous insufferable—a sort of justice from a billionaire’s mansion in Colorado.

I’m slowing down my search for now, but

was anything ever more true than this by Rilke:

I live my life in widening circles
that reach out across the world.

I think this is my conclusion, then, or at least my latest circle:

The air is sound in flight. So many times, I've stopped what I was doing to hear the world's timbre and summer’s humid locust buzzing. Roots of trees communicate all across the forest, sending mushrooms up from time to time through topsoil, and the sun is just so many rises. And a face all calm, eyes not yet opened, lips about to smile. A thought just hatching, a stretch yet to become a yoga.

Alive for the sake of make-believing.

If I say the full range of silence is deafening and blue is every color, I doubt you could prove me wrong.

I’m a member of the

Iowa Writers Collaborative Roundup

there are seemingly a battalion of us. I recommend

Chris Jones

Swine Republic,

Art Cullen

and

Wini Moranville

1. Steve Semken, March 10, 2025, 6:45am