I was listening to a song in my YouTube music app, and when it finished, a strange thing happened. There was silence. Beautiful silence. And in that moment, I don't know if I'd ever recognized silence as being so beautiful. Like a rush of bliss, with nothing popping up (like an unwanted commercial in the middle of a video that you are immersed in) to obscure it.

Perhaps the reason that this stood out so dramatically, is that I've been fighting the YouTube (et al) gremlins of autoplay for what was beginning to seem like forever. Especially in my car. One song ends, another begins, as I scramble turn off the autoplay (which seems to work for a minute or two, or, at best, until the next time I get in my car). As soon as my bluetooth engages, the music comes; uninvited, unwelcomed. Like when the next door neighbor would start up his motorcycle early in the morning, right outside my window (In those moments, I would seriously consider buying a bb gun), piercing the silence. Perhaps YouTube has trained me to expect this obnoxious behavior once the music is "finished" (provoking me to want to yell at it, or maybe throw something, or actually buy that bb gun), because as silence began to settle in, it was as a beautiful symphony.

Why silence, if music is so central in my life? An interesting question, and one I've been (indirectly) pondering for years, though I've never attempted to make verbal sense of it, rather holding it with internal acceptance. So, here"s a start: In my own experience, in both musical practice and performance, i've learned both to respond to what I hear in my head, and what I "see" with my heart, and to differentiate between the two. And reliably, the deeper spaces are found when I can gaze out beyond my own head. I suppose it's similar, and relatable, to the experience anyone can have in communing with nature; where wonder can enlighten us as concepts fail us. 

There are two responses one can have to silence; either to fill the space/vanquish the silence, or to listen to it. Listening to silence may first appear an oxymoron. So let's rephrase it as being present within the silence. And from there, everything flows. A Christian cleric I once knew was fond of saying: "God's first language is silence. God's second language is music. After that, It's a free for all." To me, there is much about this that rings true.