NONFICTION

​My Friends at Golden Gate Park      -      Barbara Applegate                     

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Stillness
by Barbara Applegate

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Stillness; we have a love-hate relationship. I love quiet and being alone. I'm not a hermit but I think I could be one without too much adjustment. I haven’t had a TV for the last 20 years and I seldom listen to music. I read a lot and I walk a lot. I enjoy walks with a friend but I actually prefer walking alone. Alone, I see more and my enjoyment of the beauty of Golden Gate Park or Land’s End or the beaches or the Presidio, is focused and deep, renewing and uplifting. I often overflow with gratitude as I walk in beauty and solitude.
 
Another pleasure in solitude is writing. I have kept journals for decades. I am not a consistent journaler, but I do have four boxes full of journals that I have filled over the years. I enjoy taking writing classes and hope one day to complete a memoir of my childhood.
 
These experiences of stillness—reading, writing, walking, also knitting—are easy and bring joy to me. They are important to me and occupy a large portion of my days, especially now during the pandemic.
 
My negative feelings toward stillness are dread and fear. I have a hearing loss that is found to be a little worse every time I have my hearing checked. I have been wearing hearing aids for about 16 years. I first noticed my hearing loss in meetings at work. If it was a large gathering around a long table, I missed a lot of the conversation. I decided to have my hearing checked. Yes, I could be helped by hearing aids but other than that, there was nothing I could do to prevent the slow decline of this incredibly important sense. It was likely that my fading hearing was hereditary.
 
Both of my parents, as they aged, began to lose their hearing and each one suffered from it. They had divorced more than 30 years before, so I observed separately the decline in quality of each of their lives as they became more and more isolated. My mother never spoke of her loss but we learned to be close to her to communicate. She also was a lover of solitude although she had many friends, the number of which steadily declined over the years as they moved away or passed away.
 
My father’s hearing loss was more severe than my mother’s. He did speak to me of how he eventually just isolated himself, telling friends who wanted to visit that he was busy and couldn't get together with them. It was just too hard to pretend that he could hear and therefore too difficult to carry on conversation with them. He could talk to me because he knew that I wanted to hear what he had to say and he didn't have to pretend that he could hear me. I would get right up to his ear, speak loudly, and that was how we communicated. 

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I know what is coming for me. Yes, stillness that I love and that I dread. Already I have to tell my adult children to not talk to me from another room, that they must turn around and face me if they want me to hear what they are saying. I get so tired of saying, "What did you say?" And I'm 200% sure that they are as tired of hearing me say it. It is painful and wearing for all.
 
People will go to great efforts to be helpful to someone on crutches, or in a wheelchair or who is blind. We want to be helpful when we see a need. We will hasten to hold a door open, to help someone cross the street safely, or offer to give directions.
 
In contrast, faced with a person with a hearing impairment, many people tend to get irritated when asked to repeat what they just said, especially if they are asked to repeat it a second time, or if they are asked to speak louder. It has been my experience that people have less patience, less generosity, when it comes to being helpful to a hearing-impaired person.
 
I believe I understand why. With the offer to hold the door or to help someone across the street, one feels virtuous to be of help and usually gratitude is expressed. The help offered and accepted is a winning situation for all involved. Both the giver and the receiver go away feeling good.
 
On the other hand, if I ask you to speak louder because I didn’t hear what you said to me, you might look around the area where we are standing to see if anybody is going to notice that you have raised your voice above normal. You want me to hear what you said, so you might repeat your words but at the same auditory level as before. And so I ask you to repeat again. Annoyance likely arises on your part. Impatience is hovering in the air. Perhaps you feel as if you will be shouting and others will turn around to see who is disturbing their peace. Essentially, I am asking you to stand out in the crowd in a negative way. Plus, my request has interrupted the flow of the conversation. Because of this difficult exchange, I often pretend that I heard what was said and, taking my cue from others in the group, nod my head or smile. I miss a lot.
 
One-on-one, face-to-face, I am completely capable of carrying on conversation. If you turn your head or speak to me from another room, I am likely to ask you to repeat. This is painful to me and gets old for you. Is this why I love solitude? In some ways I do feel sorry for myself and yet my life is full of joys. I love solitude and I love my family and my friends. My level of participation in several communities of friends and my family at this time continues to be rewarding. I am still way above the line where my frustration level will make me withdraw into a smaller and smaller circle of solitude. Conversation is good. Stillness is good. Life is good.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Barbara Applegate received a BA at UC Berkeley, with a major in Spanish, and an MS in Education at CSU, East Bay. As an administrator of Early Childhood Education, she developed a program to teach parents in non-English speaking families the value of helping their children retain the home language while learning English. She is the mother of 3 daughters, a traveler and a contemplative. She loves taking writing classes--not only because she learns from them, but because they give her structure for writing.

Other works in this Issue:  
Nonfiction
Absolution
Poetry
The World Above

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