Friday, July 13, 2007

Silent Morning

What a strange morning it is. I was awake well before my alarm; there was no reason for it… I just was. I rolled over and looked at the clock and it was just after four. The false dawn was bright in the sky and I could see the houses across the cul de sac in the bright, pre-dawn light. It was still quiet out and any noise that may have awakened me was over by now.

The rains predicted for today, have yet to materialize, which is nice because it enabled me to take a nice, long fifteen mile ride before work. I had thought to take the normal six-mile route across the Kingston bridge and along the tow path, but the world was still this morning and quiet! There was no traffic as I crossed the Thames so I decided to ride around Bushy Park.

I began to wonder as I entered the park if the whole country was celebrating some sort of bank holiday that nobody had told me about. It is usually quiet at the time of the morning that I ride into work, but this morning it is almost too quiet. It occurred to me that other than a milk float (which runs on an electric motor so as to not wake-up the whole neighborhood) and a parked police car, I had not seen another person on the street.

My musings as I rode through the park ran to a statistic that I heard once. Apparently, except for some of the more remote parts of Alaska, the Sahara, and the two arctic circles, there are very few places on the planet where one cannot hear some sort of human-made noise.

Perhaps it is because, having finished the audiobook I had been listening to, I wasn't using my MP3 player, and perhaps it was because it was unusually quiet. Whatever the reason, I was aware that there were very few sounds. I heard the wind in the leaves. The occasional sound of a jet taking off (Heathrow is less than ten miles from where I now sit in the office) was the only thing to shatter the illusion that I was alone in the world.

It was a lovely, quiet, relaxing morning. Of course, now that I've arrived at the office, the noise of the village is starting to pick-up and be noticeable. But at least I have this lovely, quiet morning to remember.

Wherever you are today, I hope your day has its moments of quiet.

Don Bergquist - 13 July 2007 - Thames Ditton, Surrey, UK

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