It’s a weird sense. A strange sense. Walking into a silent room, a silent house, surrounding by a silent town. Wrapped in quiet fields.

No internet. None of the ADHD hum and click and swish and swipe of a network, or of social media. No notifications.

Sitting down on the edge of a faded bed, resting the backpack on the pillows for  a moment. Inhaling the silence.

The way the wind moves the curtains just a little. Walls so old they go back before the great wars. Wallpaper lovingly pressed back into place and patched with little horse bristles and homemade glue.

But then that sense. That the only thing putting life into this environment is you. You’re the only thing alive. What you carry inside you and think about glows out into the room. Nothing happens unless you start it. Everything stays at rest, until you pick it up.

It’s so different to the city. Or a home. Or anywhere that does have internet. Always being online turns you into a cell. You’re plugged into something else, something always alive.

But not here. Here you’re the living thing. And the world waits for you to start.

The silence presses in on you. Silence always does. It’s like water. It rushes in to fill everything unless we break it with a whisper. Or a sound.

It’s like darkness on the ears, swelling, pressing, begging to be broken by a single word.

But it’s a space for you to start. To read a book, to think a thought. To be free.

Or to sink back and let it flow over you.

Sometimes we need that. The rustle of the rain on the window. The remembrance that our social connection is a good thing. But humans evolved to thrive in silence, and create on a blank canvas.

My ears popping, I stood up from the bed, the bedsprings creaking, the wood floor creaking, my joints creaking.

Like a symphony of preparation. Like everything holding its breath, wondering what will come out from my heart next.