When my parents divorced, my father stayed in the house with our dog and cats. It wasn't long before our pets found new homes and he was alone for the first time in more than 25 years. He got an apartment and filled it with furniture and paintings. This made the apartment seem smaller than it really was. Like possessions fill the space bodies create. Like he had never thrown out, fought over, or lost anything from before. He filled every room with appliances and sometimes I would catch him trying to recreate that hum. That beautiful symphony of dysfunction. Next to his bed he placed one of those over priced gadgets that makes comforting noise. It had a little timer on it and it would make the sound of rain until sleep was within reach.

He would tell me that he liked the quiet. He liked the time to think. He never spent a weekend alone. It was one girlfriend after another. Trying to fill the void. Finally he found one to settle on and rushed into marrying her. He couldn't be alone anymore; it was too quiet. After he moved in with his new wife I would sleep in his bed listening to fake rain finally allowing myself to miss the chaos.

I could throw out a thousand cliches about the value of silence but tonight I sat on my kitchen counter sorting papers. I was humming a Grateful Dead song and I remembered my father. I remembered him looking a little lost. Sad. Lonely. I realized that I want to hear the silence. I want to be alone. I want to be with only myself listening for my own rain to stop. In that silence, I will miss the noise. maybe even crave it. But I want to know for once in my life, I lived without it. And I didn't use you to recreate it.