Disturbed by silence
Compared with Ireland, twilight seems very short in south-west France. The sun sets and darkness quickly follows. The house stands alone in rolling countryside. No street lights are visible. No sound is audible.
It is strange what you miss, strange that the dull and the banal and the ordinary sounds of life can become important, strange that silence, something which should not be threatening can evoke unanticipated emotions.
I remember a train journey home to Somerset after a football match, the midnight train from Paddington, which stopped at unlikely places and seemed to spend forever at Bristol Parkway before passing the city and dropping south into the dark Somerset countryside. There was a strange woman, maybe in her 30s, in the carriage, who was either disturbed or taking some substance. She would periodically waken sleeping passengers and complain about rats’ tails. Getting out at Castle Cary, or Bridgwater in the early hours, (I don’t remember now and they are on different lines), we spent what remained of the night in a friend’s house before turning up for classes at 9am. Whatever the discomfort and whatever the tiredness, there was a feeling of security about that journey.
Since childhood I have feared being alone and being isolated. I have always liked the feeling of security that comes from knowing that you are surrounded by people going about their daily duties. In my university days I lodged with an uncle and aunt in Kew in west London. At night you could hear the trains on the District and North London lines, you could hear the traffic going along the South Circular, and you could hear the aircraft going into Heathrow airport – there was reassurance in the familiar world continuing as I slept.
In Dublin sleep on a Saturday night would often be disturbed by the noise of taxis and the shouts of young people returning from clubs and pubs, by passers by who had drunk too much, but I didn’t mind. It was reassuring that humanity was awake and active.
Standing at the doorway here, staring out into the nothingness, there is no reassurance that the world has not disappeared. A shout for help would not be heard.
Deep silence can bring a strange awareness of vulnerability, of there being no hiding place, but from what? What is there that can provoke such a sense of unease? A psychologist would presumably make much of a fear of quietness!
One of the things that struck me as odd about the tradition that had monks off on islands was it seemed so sprung up. The history as delivered in Ireland and for that matter the UK has no connection between places like Mont St Michel, St Michael’s Mount, Sceilig Mhichíl and the monasteries in the Sinai. But of course there is. And I expect that psalter found with papyrus in the covers about 10 years ago proves the links even if it’s held by the academics as ‘unproven’.
I think loneliness is a terrible thing, but I believe there’s a difference between it and aloneness. I’ve seen friends who when their marriages were disintegrating entered a loneliness that was palpable entering the house. While I am generally alone and quite happy there. Even as a kid I dreamt of a cabin in the Canadian wilderness someplace on the eastern side of the Rockies miles from anybody. Of course nowadays I’d sensible call for the Andes for the wointers would’ve done me in in the snowy north.
On the Sceilig Mhichíl thing. If they were thinking along the Mt Athos no females route they sure as shootin picked the wrong place and the wrong food source.
I agree there is a difference between loneliness and isolation. My first days as a student in London were the loneliest in my life. Isolation fascinates me, but also conjures irrational fears.