I pulled over to the side of the road, turned off the car, and waited to see if anyone might come. No one did.

I opened the door and stepped out. The rocks crunched under my feet. I walked out into the middle of the road and brought the camera’s viewfinder up to my left eye. With such a quintessential road trip shot right there in front of me, I figured I shouldn’t let it go untaken.

It was a beautiful sight but what was more powerful to any one of my five senses at that moment was the uncompromising vastness of silence, for there was nothing to cause even the slightest vibration to my eardrums.

Nothing.

It struck me then how much white noise had surrounded me for every moment of my every day for as long as I could remember. I stood there for several minutes, still as can be, bathing in that clean pure silence.

It was marvelous.

I laughed to myself quietly but this disrupted my reverie and of course that which I was marveling over. I was reminded of my being, that I was alone, and the unnaturalness of standing in the middle of the road indefinitely.

I whispered “Goodbye, silence” and walked back over to my car, not knowing when I might experience such a silence again.