Living in the land that silence forgot

We live in the land that silence forgot.

Sharp at midnight a bin-lorry stops outside our building. Every night. Three bins. 50 metres further away another three. Uninvited like a church bell it informs us, what time it is.

Between midnight and dawn the muffled sound of a nightclub rolls through the neighbourhood. Coming back home in the early hours, no rush, I’ll drop you of here, I’ll drop you off there, we’ll have a chat, we’ll have a laugh, we’ll dance to the rhythm of the music blaring from the speakers. 20 minutes, half an hour or longer, if we feel like it.

In the early morning a scooter rushes by below our windows. Silencers are of course out of fashion. So it rushes by without one, and using all the strength of its engine it climbs uphill. Or hurries downhill. The same sound, only a different intensity.

If a TV, then only loud enough for everyone to hear (including those in the bathroom and kitchen).

If a conversation, then one that everybody around can hear. No secrets. (How good it can be not to understand sometimes!)

But the most important thing is that children should be able to shout themselves silly. Any time, any place.
A train, the metro, a restaurant – all these are spaces where children are free to be noisy. The more, the merrier; the merrier, the longer; the longer, the louder. Children live here blissfully unaware of the fact that silence has a value. Their world of rules and boundaries does not include the one about keeping quiet.

But after all childhood is a time of laughter and fun, a time when quiet equals boredom. Everybody knows that. Everybody understands. Only that in the land that silence forgot the understanding is much deeper than anywhere else.


***

Around 10 p.m. it gets cool enough for the children to play safely in the play park. They’re going to play for at least three hours, on swings, climbing frames and in the sand pit. A few parents are going to watch them, making sure that nobody disturbs their fun.

Instead of listening to them shouting, I turn off my ears and travel to the silence of snowy Swedish forests.