I’ve always been the type of person to have a constant lull of music, always playing from something, somewhere. Music has found itself in every corner of my life, central and humming from the radios, the walls, the grasses.
Navy blue nights covered in Johnny Cash, early mornings that echoed with warm Iron & Wine and the spiky sound of The Cure. Pieces of moments connected in lyrics of The Sundays, Tyler Childers, Eagles, Alice Phoebe Lou, little stars made of the bright showings like Sufjan Stevens, neon and endlessly shown as I walked from place to place, clicking my feet softly on some asphalt pad, some soft ground of clay dirt. I can’t imagine my life without the music and listening I’ve always had, whether it was some song I snuck from the boat radio while my dad whipped us through Lake Marion, or a tune barely heard from my spot in the back of a pickup truck. Or the late night music that spread around my friends and I in spirals, holding us together with the occasional low-paid cover of a friends band of ours.
So, when I lost my cheap pair of headphones I’d been using religiously around the end of November, it didn’t go very well at first. They are always in my ears — whether it’s in the early morning for my regular gym routine, or working on one of many essays as I endure my studies at college. It was all the stages of grief that you could name, believing that they’d surely appear again, until days and then weeks passed. Before I knew it I had gone almost 2 months without a constant playing in my ears as I went about my day to day.
Still, even in my frustration, I found myself listening to a new kind of poetry. Even moreso, returning to a poetry I had forgotten, covered up by my quick moving, crowded life I’ve been so blessed to have. In those times of the day that would usually be watered down by the extra sound, I found moments for boredom that were more beneficial than I had anticipated. From these seven weeks I took 3 main things that I thought would be worth sharing with whoever may come across this piece.
1. Hearing the birds sing at least once a day is good for your health
I grew up in days that were almost always outside somehow, whether it was covered in dirt, swimming, or helping my dad with the yard work. It was always so integral to me as a kid waking up before everyone else on those mornings and hearing the mourning doves, Carolina wrens, and mockingbirds call to each other back and forth while the sun still crawled itself from its bed of bald cypress and evergreen.
Now, at my university, there are many walks through our campus that are bordered in tall oak trees, with branches that reach across the grass-covered quad. The birds that live in these trees never stop their subtle, low songs, only slowing them as the days shorten into smaller pieces of sky blue, the cold crowding in and choking out the leaves. Usually, in my walks from class to class, place to place, I would not pay as much attention to these little voices. In the weeks I spent without music, and even now, as I have gained a new habit of listening more often, I catch the snippets of hellos and goodbyes, following them to the feathered sources in the shapes of chickadees, goldfinches, cardinals, thrashers. My walks have felt all the more peaceful and have made my often stressful days just a little less overwhelming. I’ve found myself going back, leaving to walk to class earlier so as to enjoy it slowly.
2. Music is better enjoyed when less listened to
I love to listen to a song over and over until I’ve quite literally drained it of all meaning and life force. Of all the habits I have, it’s definitely one of the worst. The most recent extreme obsession has been Flightless Bird / American Mouth by Iron & Wine — I highly, highly recommend it. I’ve often received messages from friends tracking my listening habits to ask why I had listened to the same song fifteen times in a row, and sometimes more.
I’ve never quite been able to find a solution to this problem. As much as I could always tell myself I wouldn’t listen to a song over and over until I couldn’t enjoy it anymore, I still would return back to it inevitably. In a weird, unexpected way, not being able to listen to music as often helped. It feels silly — listen to music less, enjoy it more? I was only able to truly listen to music when I would be driving in my car, whether that was to an errand or three hours across the state to my parents house. I was able to appreciate those songs I love all the more because I simply hadn’t heard them in a while. And, while I have never been the type of person to say that withholding something makes it better, music may be one of those very few things. Let the songs marinate a little. Come back to them when the time is right.
3. Regaining presence in your own life regains your agency to create
All these things considered, one of the most influential things I found in this seven week long journey was a refreshed ability to write. I can get very, very stressed during the school year here at UNC Chapel Hill. The work can compile on top of me like the Blue Ridge Mountains. And when those stressful times come, not only do I shut myself into my own world that is contained by the gates of my noise-canceling headphones, but I have less time to be creative, and even less willpower to try. I spend so much time writing and working on school related things, that when I finally get the chance to sit down at my desk and flex any creative muscles, they’ve deteriorated in some hidden filing cabinet somewhere in my brain. I’ve always hated this. Writing and art have been a huge part of my life since as early as I could walk.
Without my headphones, I couldn’t shut myself away from everyone as easily. Sure, if I needed true silence, I could find it in my bedroom. But what I found was that this shutting myself off only made me more stressed, and, by proxy, made it even harder to do my work. I have never been one to give myself enough grace, but in these weeks I have caught myself in these hermit modes that do little to truly help me get any work done. Doing work with a few friends nearby, or next to my boyfriend on the couch while he did his own tasks, was worlds better. And, with this better habit, there was more time to write, more time to paint. Even in this last semester, I was able to work on a piece in this new free time that won me a huge award, and even the cash to replace those lost headphones. If I could allow myself the liberty to talk and enjoy my time working, I could just as easily spend my breaks doing something I loved rather than just doomscrolling on my phone with music blasting in my ears.
In all the details of my life that have improved since losing those headphones, all of them return back to slowness. I overheard in a conversation that the young people of today can’t live life without headphones in, moving around like zombies in a living world. I’ve always thought that statement was harsher than need be, but now, with my seven weeks cold turkey, I have to agree. How do we come back to our lives that we do everything we can to separate ourselves from? Sometimes it’s just moving a little slower, taking pace without blocking ourselves off, easing tensions. Life with an entire sense cut off feels more like existing. But it doesn’t have to.
