Outer Noise/Inner Noise

I was having one of those mornings in which everything seems to flow gracefully from one activity to the next. Rose early to write and pray. Woke up the kids with the dog gleefully leading the way into each of their rooms. Ate a good breakfast  and biked to yoga. Arrived early and took my time stretching out before class. Biked home, got cleaned up and went right to my office with the pretty upstairs view of our trees and our street. Opened the windows to let in the glorious fall breeze. I had never been so ready to write.

At the same moment I pushed the window pane up the power washer company showed up two doors down.  The noise was deafening. Our house shook.  I could not possibly sit at my desk with the windows open. I could not even sit on that side of our house. I had to move as far away from the maddening sound as possible.

As I settled into my second-choice seat at the kitchen table I remembered that people who teach centering prayer have some tips about handling noise.  Father Thomas Keating, for instance, talks about the natural stream of consciousness kind of noise we all experience when we try to be still and focus on our connection with God. He describes this kind of noise as a gentle conversation with a beloved friend. We should welcome and expect that kind of noise.

But there is another kind of attention-grabbing noise that absorbs us and pulls us away from our conversation, as if there is a window open and we hear an accident on the street below and get up to go see what's going on.  When we get distracted like that we re-focus by going back to our seat, excusing ourselves for interrupting the conversation, and carry on.

If that technique works with interior noise, I thought, perhaps it can work with exterior noise as well.  I could respond to the reverberating drone of the power washer by being totally consumed by it, or I could respect my neighbors for taking care of their house and bring my attention back to my original project. That morning offered a great opportunity to experiment.

And it worked, at least for a while.  I concentrated on my writing project so hard that I barely noticed when the power washer stopped.

Then the tree removal service showed up at the house across the street.  This time I surrendered to the noise and decided it was a good time to take the dog for a walk.