How, Then, Shall you Live?

Published without edits because who has time for that these days? Upcoming performance punctuated with Paul Simon’s Sound of Silence by Simon & Garfunkel

As Mike Wankum ended his feverish presentation of the upcoming weather forecast and handed it off to Ed and Maria, I could feel myself getting more and more tense. There’s something about the way that he delivers his two-minute segment that, to me, sounds like the end of the world is nigh and Mike Wankum, Ed Harding, and Maria Stephanos will lead us into the dark. This, with the backdrop of an oxygen compressor, is decidedly NOT the sound of silence but IS the sound of my life at home. The day feels a bit like a noisy marathon from start to finish, the house always filled with television noise, doom, gloom, and positive highlights so that we don’t all despair too much. Too late. I already despair. Then I go to bed and seek, again, the sound…….of silence.

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedHello darkness, my old friend
I've come to talk with you again
Because a vision softly creeping
Left its seeds while I was sleeping
And the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains
Within the sound of silence

I don’t really get complete silence as I drift off to sleep; I hear teen video game shouts through the walls. But, the room is dark, the sheets are soft, and my exhaustion is real. So I sleep perchance to dream and, boy, do I ever dream. The other night, for example, I dreamt that I was solely responsible for a late co-workers death. I was devastated, sobbing, and worried I would be found out and sent to jail. Invariably, I wake around 3 AM in a drenching sweat and/or needing to pee. I stumble across my bedroom and into the horribly lit bathroom.

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedIn restless dreams I walked alone
Narrow streets of cobblestone
'Neath the halo of a street lamp
I turned my collar to the cold and damp
When my eyes were stabbed by the flash of a neon light
That split the night
And touched the sound of silence

I get up for the day around 5, my routine is like untangling a giant hairball. After getting all three kids up and aware of their humanity plus check on the breathing status of Mom, I pour whatever caffeine of choice I have for that day into my Yeti and drive to school. I walk into those doors and am immediately hit by the smell of vanilla musk and aggressive colognes. Kids are really into how they smell these days.

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedAnd in the naked light I saw
Two thousand students, maybe more
People talking without speaking
People hearing without listening
People writing songs that voices never share
No one dared
Disturb the sound of silence

Despite my life being decidedly chaotic, teaching has answered the question that my alma mater Holy Cross posed to me back in 1996—“How then shall we live?” There’s something about working in a place where every walk of life is compelled to be together without dissolving into anarchy. I don’t think I could make a living any other way. Though I teach Spanish, my role as an educator is really just to reach my fellow humans at a crucial point of frontal lobe development. I want those who may someday wipe my drool to know the freedom of choice, to desire to improve all things, to create art, and, above all, to have empathy for those around them.

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published"Students" said I, "You do not know
Silence like a cancer grows
Hear my words that I might teach you
Take my arms that I might reach you"
But my words like silent raindrops fell
And echoed in the wells of silence

The last couple weeks of teaching and mothering through disillusionment have felt like two years in total. I go through my routine of undulating noise and silence. I watch fellow countrymen praise the tangerine God and shake my head in disbelief. How, then, shall we live? I have found myself asking again for the first time in about 30 years.

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedAnd the people bowed and prayed
To the neon god they made
And the sign flashed out its warning
In the words that it was forming
And the sign said, "The words of the prophets
Are written on the subway walls
And tenement halls
And whispered in the sounds of silence"

I’m not happy about the outrage fatigue I’m about to endure over the next few years. I know that many share my despair. I will say, however, that if we’re to survive these next few years with our decency intact, we need to see the writing on the walls and hear the whispers of pain though it may hurt our ears and make us want to shield our eyes. “Now is not the time to sit on the fence” I tell my students while I play “Under Pressure” on the speaker overhead as they conjugate the verb “amar-to love”. What a perfect answer to the deafening sound of silence. How, then, shall you not just survive but live these next few years?