On Tuesday, I went to Main Street with my friend for dinner. And right after we got our food, the first thing she said was, “Phone eats first,” before snapping 4 pictures of her Mexican chicken in a bowl. I’ve been preoccupied with this concept since that evening.
So often are we too fixated on how things look, instead of listening to what’s around us. Instead of hearing and feeling the vibrations of the environment that hums and pulses around us. The idea that the Ladakhis construct arranged marriages based on skill, personality and family impression, truly baffles me. How do they find these truths that so often seem hidden?
I have been participating in the sorority rush process for the last 2 weeks. This very planned social experience allows me a 25-35 minute conversation with 2-3 people. I get to share my name, my major and where I’m from. And before the sound byte small talk becomes genuine interaction, the time is up and we move on. And I have noticed something: these so-called conversations have so much less impact on sorority interviewers than the way I present myself, my hair, my clothes. It is my appearance — what they see — that carries more weight with these groups of women, typical of our American culture. However, the Ladakhi spouse is somehow more than seen; she is felt and heard, seeking to unveil what she is like on the inside.
Scrolling through my camera roll today, I realize all I had to show for my last trip to White Clay were the pictures that I took with my phone. The color of the few burgundy berries growing amongst a white, melted, snowy backsplash, followed by a lime green patch of moss shaped like my Long Island home, and the difference in size of my sunken, muddy footprint against that of a larger, past traveler. And again, like at my dinner, I was suddenly aware that our phones, more specifically our eyes, all-too-easily dominate our experiences.
So I closed my eyes this time.
I walked down to the stream wrapped in a blanket I brought, shut my eyes, and listened. Quickly, my ears were surrounded by the wind that seemed to be rushing at me from every direction. So I slowly began tipping my head different directions, slowly, pausing in each new position to attempt to gather as many unique noises as possible. In front of me ran a stream, where sounds of quieter water knocking against the log I sat on bounced off the shoreline, but beat a very different rhythm from the whooshing of the deeper current. To my left, the squawk of what I could only imagine to be a seagull startled me (my later research would determine that it was most likely a Herring Gull) but the more chattering, obnoxious honks of Canada geese at times overwhelmed the repetitive, fluttery chirp of some other bird that seemed to play on loop to my right, as if waiting for a response that never came in the time I sat and listened.
Behind me I heard the quick step and jingle collar of a dog, clearly off the leash because there was only one set of sloshy steps. A few seconds later, both a man and woman called out “Hayden, come,” each at separate times, the woman seemingly more aggressive. And just like that the ring of the collar and even faster steps followed until they walked out of audible distance.
Only then did I open my eyes and walk back to my car.
But I quickly realized that the beauty and peace of listening was much less gratifying when all there was to hear was the slam of my car door and the redundancy of today’s top hits.