The Quietest Time

The shortest day of the year is the Winter Solstice.  The fewest hours of daylight which for most means going to work in the dark and coming home still in darkness.  Living here in Tacoma, up north of the 47^th parallel, our days are even shorter, but at least we have long summer nights to look forward to.  But the solstice happens right at the zenith of the Holiday season.  Houses shining over the long nights with thousands of LED lights, casting a warm glow back through the windows to those inside as the temperature drops. 

The darkest night of the year is usually right about the day after the New Year.  Nearly everyone has the day off, and as long as it isn’t raining it is a good day to take down those Christmas lights.  Suddenly all the life and happy colors are gone, wrapped up and balls to be untangled the next year.  Or thrown out and replaced with new lights scooped up at after Christmas clearance sales.  Maybe the porch light gets turned on, but so many houses don’t bother to do that.  The street lights suddenly seem small and ill equipped to handle the darkness.  The night wins.

Just as the holidays started, I lost my job.  It doesn’t matter why, but both my laptop and my phone were not for mine to keep so I had to turn them in.  And with that, I discovered the quietest time of the year.

I hadn’t driven anywhere in at least a decade without the ability to at least call home and tell my wife where I was, how traffic was, or maybe what we should have for dinner.  On that crap of a day I sat in heavy traffic, inching my way homeward along with thousands of drivers.  I can’t be sure but it seemed like every single one of them was either talking on their phone or texting.  And since I was just sitting there driving instead of being distracted like a drunk on the road because they just have to answer that Pavlovian ping and text while driving, I really started to hate every other person.  More so than usual.

The day before I had injured my back handing out Holiday wreaths at our kid’s elementary school.  I wrenched my back so badly that once I made it home from the two plus hours of sitting in the car, I could barely get out of the car, let alone make it up the stairs to our front door.  After finally getting that pill that I couldn’t take before driving, I settled into my chair and spent the next few days with the heating pad, pain meds and TV.

By then it was the weekend, and I have always had the habit of turning off my work phone at day’s end on Friday, and only turn it on if I had to run some errands or when Monday came.  So, It took me a while before I noticed the change.  We still have a home phone, including a beautiful avocado green desk top rotary phone in the basement that rings with real nostalgia in those bells.  I’m not sure why in this day and age we have a land line, but I guess when the power goes out we can still make a phone call in the dark.  But since the cell towers will lose power there will be no one to call. 

December is the busy season, not just for the work I was doing, but for all of us.  And suddenly I disappeared from so many places.  I had relied on my work laptop as our decade old home laptop was on its last legs.  Now Web searches took what seemed like hours to find information on unemployment, health care, bills and job searches.  Emails to former contacts went unanswered for a while as everyone was busy, and my messages came from a new, unfamiliar address.  Several people had tried to text me, but that number wasn’t mine any more.  In the rush and noise of the “most wonderful time of the year”, I had entered a place that was silent. 

I didn’t go very many places, so much of what we can do now days we can do from where ever we want to be.  We bought a new computer to get into the 21^st century again but setting that up and transferring everything took the better part of a week.  And all this time I still was waiting to get a phone. I couldn’t  text my wife when she went to the store.  My teenage daughter couldn’t text me to ask if she could hang out with her friends a little longer.  She actually had to call me and ask me with her voice, using her phone for what it was intended.

The holiday season is also when most of the world uses up vacation time, letting emails pile up in the inbox to be gone through when they return.  Reaching out to contacts and friends was often met with out-of-office replies or often nothing at all.  Even the electronic world was silent.

In the dark of the new year, with cold dark days and nights, the silence was magnified.  I heard my house creaking in the wind, the clock’s ticking, the clicking of the keyboard and mouse as I searched the world. 

A fellow parent asked how could I survive without a phone.  I don’t have a computer in my pocket to answer questions, I guess I have to either know something or find out later.  I don’t have a calendar, email access or the ability to play music. I can do those things at home. 

I know that I will get a new phone soon, and once I’m back at work I will need it and all its conveniences.  But I have liked this small vacation from the need for the attention and devotion that our little electronic masters have of us.  I have enjoyed the silence.