Roam & Ramble

We tend to place such a high premium on keeping conversations going like a volleyball that must stay up in the air. We scramble for topics and fill silence with so’s and umm’s. When a sentence halts with a deafening period, we panic. We fear dead air so much even if we can find just as much – if not more – meaning in silence.

The measure of one’s relationship isn’t just in the number of words bounced back and forth, but also in the thoughts left unspoken but still understood. It’s in the space between statements that two people learn to fall in sync, to read one another in ways no one else can.

In music, the rests are just as important as notes. Without those gaps, songs are reduced to mechanical spewings of tones – exercises rather than expression. One finds rhythm in the rests. By striking balance between the air and matter, percussionists create patterns people can dance to.

When we fear the void, when we fill it with noise out of unease, we suffocate the connection. We smother communication and keep it from flourishing. What could be a symphony for two becomes a cacophony for none. It’s a march and not a waltz.