On the Matter of Listening

My favorite childhood book was, caustically, “Guess How Much I Love You.” Though lacking elaborate plot, it tells the (touching?) story of a big rabbit putting his child rabbit to bed. They engage in a lively debate about who loves who more. Sometimes I would sit right up next to my mom, my small butter head resting mildly on her arm, her voice velvet on my cheek, chocolate mousse in my ears, holding me. Her voice in this moment – still holding me.

It was the beginning of a sardonic walk through life where I always listened and rarely spoke. Thought much, and articulated little. Listening — a space where I feel comfortable. It is in its antithesis that I clam up.

I run frequently, and my favorite season to run is fall because I love soundtrack the dead leaves that litter the floor make when they crunch under my crappy sneakers. In the fall, the leaves wax poetic against the infinite blue sky, glorious red and yellow pearls. The delicious conglomerate makes me acutely aware of how small I am, paralyzing and exhilarating in the same breath. A moment that marries some senses without a fanatic ceremony, a quiet and humble erasure of partition.

I used to love to hear people speak, but now I mostly prefer quiet between words, the unanswered invitation to speak without fulfillment, the mundane sounds which fill the spaces — I particularly love the birds who chirp and don’t think about whether they are happy or not, whether they really wanted to be a writer or maybe they should have been a doctor, whether they wanted to settle on Long Island or would have done better in Maine. They don’t think, they just are, and I envy them.

And I think that Descartes was full of shit.

My thoughts paralyze me into a non-compliant listener, irrevocably compliant by virtue of my silence. I speak when I feel so moved, or when I’m directly asked, sure, but I always preferred for my mother to read me the stories. I remember she would sometimes invite me to read to her instead. It always felt immensely contrived, like a meaningless task borne of banality. Why would I read to her when I so enjoyed her honey voice, telling me again and again how she loves me more? Why would I speak when I loved more than anything to listen?

-NG