Embracing the sounds of the city

“Seek silence. Gladden in silence. Adore silence.” -- Deng Ming-Dao

“Wherever you go, there you are.” -- Jon Kabat-Zinn

Breathe. Sit. Listen.

This simple three- word mantra so often serves to bring me back to center, to that space where clarity is and all things are possible. On this late September morning in Manhattan I struggle with it. Instead of clarity, the listening brings in just too much sound.

Horns honking. A small plane flies overhead, the sound seeming focused and louder traveling down the airshaft. Heavy doors slam. A blender starts up. Yet another airplane’s magnified engine sound assails me. Hurry- ing feet are heavy overhead. Children’s voices ebb and flow in the halls. Another door slams. Scraping sounds. A cough.

Am I just too used to my own morning cacophony of sound? Am I spoiled by the rising crescendo of birdsong that accompanies dawn at home?

I search for an answer. I breathe. I sit. I listen. The shrill bell of a phone rings up the shaft as my only answer. Sirens blend with my thoughts, their rising crescendo replacing the familiar birdsong. This is it. This is where I am.

Familiar mingles with new on this trip to New York. Traveling with my daughter Jenna on her first trip to the city has allowed me to see it through new eyes. And, suddenly as I write this last, I get it. New ears.

This trip is not about silence. It is about the rush and the vast, overwhelming variety of stimuli. Seeking the solace of silence after a hectic summer festival season, I am the one out of sync here. I was resisting, somehow, the here and the now — the moment.

Now, I begin again. Breathe in as the smell of a match first overpowers and then mingles with that of strong coffee. Sit and enjoy this brief respite before the day’s full itinerary begins. And listen, not to the silence, perhaps, but to a wondrous experience of the sounds of living in their fresh diversity.

Silence can wait for now. It will be found. For now, a church bell tolls, a radio is turned on low, voices muted, more horns signal the hurry and bustle of this day, of this city. It is ours to enjoy. I breathe it all in. I simply pause to sit and listen.

Soon enough we are off and running. Our senses are full as we walk through first Chinatown and its markets filled with strong odors of fish — both dead and alive (oh, so fresh!) — and then into Little Italy with sweet, baking smells mingling with spicy aromas.

Sound rushes at us from all directions, culminating in the rush-hour walk across the Brooklyn Bridge. We relax in Brooklyn Park as the sun starts to set past the Statue of Liberty and traffic, and a train passes loudly overhead on the Manhattan Bridge.

In the course of this day, we have tasted the best of diverse foods, from pork buns in Chinatown to Polish pierogi to cannoli from the Italian bakery.

We have flowed along with the crowds wherever we have gone, simply absorbing and absorbed by the city, a part of this exciting city with all of its history and majesty all around us.

The silence I thought that I needed for clarity has been replaced by the clarity that comes with simply being in the moment. It is true, as Jon Kabat-Zinn has written, that wherever you go, there you are, and to try to have it be else is to deny oneself the pure enjoyment of being.

Yes, silence can wait for now. It will come.