One day as I was walking to the learning center on base in Kuwait, I realized I felt out of sorts. I was growing fuzzy as sound filled space where reflection used to be. I couldn’t find silence. I desperately wanted to experience a moment of quiet, something I hadn’t heard since stepping foot in the country. One of the results of the oppressive heat was a preponderance of AC units. Everywhere. Walking outside meant hearing the sounds of jet engines, helicopters, and the outside components of the engines required to keep those AC’s running for each facility. What stopped me in my tracks was that I couldn’t hear myself think amidst the din. I started to lose the ability to process my own thoughts without the silence necessary to listen to them well. There wasn’t a place to escape to hear the natural world, not that there was much of the natural world thriving around me anyway. I never realized how much I took the sounds of wind rustling through the trees, water babbling over stones, birds chirping and their wings beating the air. I missed the sights and smells that accompany those sounds as well, but sound matters a great deal to me (as many of you know) so I felt its constant, mechanized presence particularly sharply.

Fortunately, I had time in between my summer and fall terms to take a little R&R. I scheduled a trip to the mountains where I could sit and listen to the natural world again. I intentionally unplugged and spent time unwinding while listening to thunderstorms over the Austrian Alps, cowbells and their owners weaving through the forest, and the quiet whisper of grass blades on my shoes. I also may have enjoyed a little beer for brunch in Innsbruck, but I’m sure it was 5 o’clock somewhere.

As I sat one night on my balcony while thunder cracked above me, I closed my eyes and let the sounds drown out the thoughts of class prep, pending repositioning, and the last of the desert stress. The sounds literally raining around me grounded me, and always will ground me, in a reality much larger than myself. When we are surrounded by the whir and buzz of mechanics, and technology, we exist in a half-life, something fabricated to feel like living. But it isn’t living. For me, that constant repetition of sound frayed my ability to center myself. Natural sound creates space in my mind and my soul for rest, for peace. Rest and peace lead me to gratitude.

I’ve asked my friends for a literal intervention if I begin to take the opportunities I have for granted. As I wandered in the Alps soaking in the imposing beauty and symphony of sounds around me, nothing in my being took one ounce of my surroundings for granted. How could I when peaceful green mountains sang me to sleep?

No words for this stunning scene

Breathtaking view from the Bergisel Ski Jump