WHATEVER HAPPENED TO OZZIE AND HARRIET: PART THREE – VOICES

I have never thought of myself as a particularly social person, but some days the quiet gets rather unnerving. Not that it is always quiet around here, but I am beginning to feel a distinct lack of certain types of noise: most specifically the sound of other people’s voices and at times the sound of my own voice.

Over the past three days I have talked to two people other than my wife: I spoke to a real estate agent yesterday, and I said thank you to the woman at the cash register when I bought groceries – neither of which were the most satisfying of conversations.

It is not that I don’t enjoy talking to/with my wife, but my soundscape sometimes becomes a bit claustrophobic. I find myself checking my email far more often than I need to, not really expecting anything significant, just checking. Maybe… I even open those emails that are most likely spam, but maybe not…

I tend to watch C-SPAN these days. I’m not really that interested, but since we don’t have cable it is the best unscripted talking with moving images I can find. Talk radio is okay, but along with the soundscape I find myself craving the visual stimulus of people doing things. Just ordinary things. There are only so many excuses I can make up for running further errands…

So… Here I am, at home, with C-SPAN on in the background. I look up every once in a while and see someone standing there talking, not to me, but certainly aware of being watched [unlike actors trained to ignore the camera] and at the moment that is enough. The tacit recognition of my existence plugs the hole in that empty soundscape. That I am sitting here is the reason for that camera, if not for me specifically, at least the premise of my being here.

Someone moves, another speech begins, the debate continues and in a little while my wife will get home. Then there will be something to say.