Shhh....quiet, please

It's quiet in here. The kids are asleep. The dog is asleep. Mike is at a movie. I had the television on, but the recorded show I was watching is over. All I hear is the tapping of my fingers on the keys and the hum of electronics plugged in.

I hate to sound stereotypical, but the older I get, the more I enjoy -- even crave -- this kind of quiet. If it weren't for the kids, the radio in my car might go for days without use. My kids seem to be able to filter out noise that I just can't tolerate. It's nothing for the television to be on in one room, a computer game buzzing and ringing in the next room, and a radio to be on two rooms over.

It's too much for me. I like to think that I'm a pretty good multitasker, but I just can't think straight when there is so much noise competing for my attention. Earlier tonight, on the way home from church, the radio was on and the kids were bickering and chattering in the back seat. We drove past a hotel and I suddenly had this fantasy of checking into a hotel all by my lonesome for the night, just for the quiet.

Sometimes I think I'd do well on one of those silent retreats -- though people who know me well, might disagree. My biggest challenge would not be the auditory silence. It would be the electronic silence.

I've gotten quite good and shutting off/out the noise that hits my eardrums. But I'm not so good at shutting out the noise that bombards my eyes and my intellect. The stream of Facebook messages, the endless collection of e-mails, even short 140 character messages on Twitter can take up some pretty hefty space in my head.

I don't really have a plan in place, but I do think that I'm going to try to build some more of that quiet into my days. Maybe just 10 or 15 minutes. No laptop. No phone. No circular parade of pontential blog posts rolling through my brain.

Just me. And the quiet. And the hum of silence.