The other day, I heard a siren while on a video call with a friend (because that’s something we do now). I listened as it sounded just outside my open window; seconds after it faded, the noise came back around, except this time, trailing through my computer as the same police car passed my friend’s apartment half a mile uphill. The transition was instantaneous — we hardly had time to realize the siren’s fade before it was back for the encore.
The memory stands out. We both stopped talking to notice it. Just a couple weeks into the Bay Area’s shelter-in-place policy, it got me thinking about sound or, rather, the lack of sound now that our world is the way it is. Back when the city’s volume was at its usual level, I doubt I would’ve even noticed that siren; it would have been muffled by too much background noise.
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Just a few days ago, I passed the hour before sunset in George Sterling Park in Russian Hill — a San Francisco type of park, one at the top of a nameless hill with views I’ll never get over. Usually, distraction is at work, with weather-revelers passing a bottle of wine back and forth and tourists on tiptoes to catch sight of the Golden Gate Bridge. But this particular evening left me alone with the skyline and only the distant chiming of church bells.
Despite a childhood spent in saddle shoes and Sunday schools, I honestly don’t remember the last time I heard church bells ring. I know they’re always there; I just haven’t really heard them. The rest of the stimuli — the audible sigh of a Muni bus pulling away from a curb; the commuters talking into AirPods; the parents walking dogs and the kids walking parents — drown out the solo sounds.
But now, with our daily choruses silenced by law, we’re left interrupting our video calls to catch the tail end of a police siren.
I like to think that I have a healthy relationship with sound, for the most part. Sometimes I devote myself to a podcast or a favorite album on the way to work; other times, I forget to pull out my headphones altogether and just roll with the white noise.
I love what sound does for us, but I can get by without it in stretches. Many of my strongest friendships rely on companionable silence — and an even more companionable laugh at the looks we get when we sink into this silence in a crowded restaurant. (Are they in a fight? A first date? Oh, god, or worse — a second date?)
As a society, we’re uncomfortable with the absence of sound, filling it with music and podcasts and white-noise machines.
Others rely on an opposition to silence — an urge to break the glass and grab the extinguisher, to fill the empty space because we want to. I have a friend who’s always asking, “So, what do you guys want to talk about?,” diving into conversation to sidestep moments of silence — even if it means wading into choppy waters.
My recent exploration of the city’s silence reminded me of the work of John Cage, an experimental composer I studied in college — and largely forgot about until recently. His most famous piece, 4'33", is a composition intended for any type of musician or instrument that instructs the performer to set up as they normally would, but to not play their instrument. The result is four minutes and 33 seconds of “silence”; the audience is left without music, but instead the sounds of their environment — the true focus of the piece.
“There’s no such thing as silence,” Cage says in a 2010 New Yorker piece by Alex Ross. Early in the piece, Cage recalls the premier of 4'33": “You could hear the wind stirring outside during the first movement. During the second, raindrops began pattering the roof, and during the third people themselves made all kinds of interesting sounds as they talked or walked out.”
The shared quiet that usually leaves audiences stirring in their seats, uncomfortable to the point of leaving — the space that Cage creates — is one worth dwelling in. It’s there that we find what we’d otherwise miss.
As a society, we’re uncomfortable with the absence of sound, filling it with music and podcasts and white-noise machines. In horror films, on first dates, during interviews — we take notable silences as hints of doom, as moments waiting to be disturbed. Now, the eerie silence of the streets is part of what drives the descriptions of the world as “apocalyptic — like something out of a sci-fi movie.”
Discomfort is already a defining feature of this period of time. We’re uncomfortable in our job security, in our quasi-work environments, in our grocery aisles, in our own heads. The absence of the familiar city tunes only adds to the effect, signaling that something is off.
By looking at silence as purposeful — at the lack of audible hellos from masked strangers on the street as reassuring rather than isolating, at the distinguishable ring of church bells as comforting instead of alarming — I’m able to sink into it more.
Of course, I use the term “silence” in the colloquial sense. Really, in San Francisco or in any major city, we can’t access true silence — not in the absolute form of the word.
If you Google the definition of “silence” (which I wouldn’t recommend; it’s an undeserving rabbit hole that ate the entirety of my lunch break), you’ll find several definitions. The primary one is, “the complete absence of sound,” but another is “the absence of intentional sound.”
Intentional sounds are those that we create — the undertones of the TV we fall asleep to, the “how are yous” and “goodnights” spoken at dinner parties, and the playlists we turn on to fill the gaps in between.
But in the context of the world today, is the silence we’re experiencing intentional?
On one hand, it feels inflicted — by law, by social norms, by a virus I can’t quite wrap my head around. But it’s also purposeful — our collective efforts to stay home to flatten the curve, to wear masks in public. We take action with a goal in mind. The resulting silence might only be a consequence, but we chose it on purpose, with all of us imposing a large-scale lowering of the volume.
By looking at silence as purposeful — at the lack of audible hellos from masked strangers on the street as reassuring rather than isolating, at the distinguishable ring of church bells as comforting instead of alarming — I’m able to sink into it more. This shift in perspective helps me feel more in control of the silence, and at a time when nothing feels within my power, I’ll take the doses of control where I can get them.
If you had asked me a few months ago, I would’ve said that San Francisco is the guy at the corner of Post and Grant who plays the saxophone at the end of each workday. The way the murmur of the crowd grows the closer you get to Dolores on a warm Saturday. The absurdist tune the wind whistles on its way to ruin your beach day.
I miss those sounds, and I’m excited to hear them again — to fill the absence of noise with voices and music and “So, what do you guys want to talk about?” To know that somewhere, John Cage is shaking his head at me.
For now, though, I’ve entered into a close personal relationship with the timer on my stove (lovely to finally meet you!) and the WebEx dial-in tone that I have to get back to. But when this is all over, I’ll remember these weeks as the days of church bells and sirens, and I’m okay with that. These sounds are representative of the choices we’ve made as a city to try to do our best for each other, and there is calm in that.
