monophony.

A few weeks ago on the train, I tried not to read over the shoulder of the young woman next to me.  I couldn't help it, though - she was reading the glossary of her book, and I had to know the words she was trying to learn.
I saw one word and stopped reading.  I stopped because after one word I knew she was reading a book about music, and I stopped because the definition was so arresting I spent the rest of the train ride thinking about it:

Monophony: a musical style employing a single melodic line without accompaniment.

A single melodic line.  Without accompaniment.  Single.  Accompany.  Melody. 

This concept was beautiful to me, as it defines both a musical style and a style of life.  Can one person - one single melodic line - create a melody?  Is it always necessary to be accompanied to give life to musical notes, bars, rests, and melodies?  Can a single melodic line resonate as powerfully as harmony?  As melodic lines accompanying each other?  My instinct in the question of solitude vs. togetherness is always to side with harmony.  I love people, relationships, and connection, and I believe we were created to live together - our basic needs depend on the existence of others in the world.  But reading this definition forced me to think again.  In some cases, perhaps a melodic line is most beautiful without accompaniment.

* * *

Last Thursday I decided to walk from Government Center to my office instead of boarding a green line train.  It was a beautiful sunny day, one of those March days in Boston that you don't get too attached to, knowing it could snow again (in fact, it did snow the next day), but you take full advantage of and stay outside as much as possible.  I stepped onto the sidewalk and the accompaniment began:

• A siren wailing (it's not his fault - he has to wail in order to be heard, and his need is urgent)
• A woman's voice shouting orders into a cell phone
• A taxi's horn honking at a businessman checking his Blackberry while jay-walking across a busy street
• A pair of high heels clicking
• A jackhammer destroying a portion of the street encased in orange construction fence
• A bus grunting and snorting and wheezing its way through traffic

I used to love this about the city.  A city offers so many distractions, noises, sights, smells - and even while people complain about the noise, it again distracts them from doing what they often don't want to do: think, and think deeply.  Who can possibly think in this cacophony of a town?  As I said, I used to love this.  I didn't want to think, didn't want to face things, didn't want to consider the fact that with each year I was slowly becoming more and more of who I actually am, and less of the person I left behind in school.  Now that I am older, I crave that space to think.  Sometimes I want to hear a single melodic line.  Sometimes I need to silence the accompaniment.

* * *

The accompaniment stopped once I reached the middle of the Boston Common.  Now protected on all sides by trees, pathways, and green, I forgot the harsh noises of the city.  Though the Common sits in the middle of downtown Boston, it is shockingly quiet - or at least, quiet enough to hear each melodic line:

• A bird chirping (this sound is only cliche if you live in the country.  When you live in the city, it is a novel, precious, and uplifting sound) 
• A dog's paws treading a grassy path
• A garbage bag rustling gently with the wind in a caged metal container
• A flag waving in the breeze (my attention was directed to the flag by a kite I noticed stuck in a tree)

These were noises, too.  But they were different noises - life noises - that still gave me space to think.  And they were sounds that didn't compete with each other.  In the stillness of the morning, each sound sang out on its own, unaccompanied, and it was this unaccompaniment that made them music.  A garbage bag rustling in the wind has never meant anything to me more than city trash.  But apart from the city noise, it was its own sound - its own melodic line - and it was beautiful.

* * *

I generally shy away from silence, white walls, and pausing while speaking.  I like activity, sound, and connection.  But in my bustling and noise-making, I failed to realize that silence is the perfect venue for monophony, for a single sound to make itself known.  And I failed to realize that this venue is everywhere, if only we will take the time to quiet ourselves, to hush the accompaniment, to tune our ears to the music of a single melody.  To give ourselves the space to think, and the quiet to truly hear.