People of Earth

The Chatterbox

She was known for talking, even when no one was listening. Her voice carried through hallways, classrooms, and streets, her open smile an invitation for all those nearby to come and listen to any and all thoughts that were generated inside her busy mind.

With every moment came a new thought, or a new conversation. When anyone was around her, they knew that they were expecting a conversation, one-sided at least, for those who didn't feel like talking.

I met her once, and I watched as she talked and smiled, and sat fidgeting softly in her seat.

I listened for an hour, and paid attention to how her vowels interacted with every consonant, and listened to her slide each word into the next seamlessly, cutting off the ends of word as she became more passionate, and slurring her words as she stopped paying attention to how she was saying things, lost in what she was saying.

I waited for a natural break, and stopped her to ask a question.

Why do you speak the way you do? I asked. So frequently and for so long? Even when no one is listening?

She paused for a moment, and for once I was looking into her eyes instead of at her words, and I saw the gears turning in her mind, crafting the perfect response.

I value speaking, she paused again, the same way I value music. The same way I value silence.

We have been granted a gift: the ability to speak. Regardless of what you believe in, we as humans have been given the ability to speak to and to understand one another, which transforms the way we live. I value speaking, and so though I do indeed speak quite a lot, I think carefully about what I say. I choose to speak to everyone as much as I do because I care about what is not said.

Those who listen as you do are the kind ones, who though they may not know it, appreciate and value the power of speech as I do.

I am known for talking yes? Well I am not paid attention to as I sit silently. That's ok, as silence is just as important.

Reflection and silence is once more a gift that we have been given. The ability to have moments where all we hear are the whirring sounds of the gears turning inside our own heads? It's about the most wonderful thing in the whole world.

I speak the way I do because I value speech, and when it is over, I value silence. I value living, and speech and silence fit together like yin and yang, without them, we would not be able to live as perfectly as we all do.

I thanked her for letting me listen, and I walked home. I walked home with my headphones in my pocket, and my ears on alert, listening to the sounds of my neighbourhood. I walked in the silence and paid attention to everything around me.

It was the middle of winter, and my boots crunched on the snow beneath my feet. I listened to the hammering noise of the house being built on the corner of my street. I listened to the sounds of the trees swaying in the wind, animals clawing their way along each branch and into their homes.

I then began to look around me, at the setting sun. The sky was cloudy, with blue tinted sweeps of clouds, baby blue and white, twirling in the sky. I looked as the sun peeked through every opening, turning the sparkling snow golden through the stencil of the clouds.

I went home, and sat down closing my eyes and listening to the sounds of my home. Not once did my mouth open to speak.

I spent the afternoon in silence, and yet in my entire life, I've never heard more.