After I broke my wrist in December, I took a few weeks off from walking the dog. In fact, I took a few weeks off from walking at all; I had no desire to find out what might happen if I slipped on another patch of ice. Can one break a currently-broken wrist? What if I slipped and broke my left wrist? What does one do with two broken wrists? I decided that I didn’t want to know the answers to these questions so, since Ottawa is definitely icy in the winter, I stayed home and “let” my partner and the kids walk the dog.
The children were compliant but not thrilled with their new duty. Mr. 15 wondered pretty regularly exactly how not icy it would have to be before I would take up my former duties. “Winter lasts a long time, Mom,” he stated bleakly. Mr. 17 tried to talk me into “just” using my left hand – but walking Max, our large energetic black lab mix, is a two-handed endeavour. Still, I missed my daily walks, so in mid-February I tentatively rejoined the dog-walking rotation: anytime the sidewalks were mostly clear, I took the dog.
Things were different now. Where before walking Max was just something I did, now it required my full focus. I scanned the sidewalks for icy patches; I looked ahead to spot other dogs that might cause Max to pull on the leash; I checked the streets for any vans he might need to try to attack (he really hates vans and buses). To protect my right hand, I needed my wits about me, so I did not put in earbuds and listen to podcasts as I used to do. I didn’t even look for things to photograph – something I love to do. I just walked the dog.
Suddenly I could hear those much-detested vans earlier and help settle Max before they arrived. When the weather broke for a February thaw, I heard the birds. And I noticed anew that people who passed me spoke several different languages – one of the many things I love about our neighbourhood. When I felt steady on my feet, my mind was able to wander. I hummed songs and just sort of thought.
This morning, as my mind meandered, I remembered the first time I realized that headphones (or MP3 players, I guess, though I didn’t know it at the time) were going to change the world. I was walking down the Champs Elysees, trailing the students I had accompanied overseas. The iPod was relatively new, and several kids had brought theirs on the trip. As some of the boys exited yet another patisserie (I’d be willing to swear that all they did on that trip was eat), I realized that Ben was bopping down the wide sidewalk of the great boulevard with his ears full of his own music. He wasn’t hearing the language swelling and swooping around him or the street noises that rose and fell as we passed various stores or even the thrum of the traffic. He was taking in the sites with his own soundtrack. I’m not 100% sure, but I think I told the kids to take out their headphones and be in Paris. I know that at some point I gave up the fight.
My objection seems almost quaint today. Now, students sit in class, an earbud in one ear, strategically hidden behind a shock of hair or under a hat. They are vaguely offended when I ask them, again, to take out their personal life soundtrack. During silent reading time, they insist that they “read better” with music on. When I ask, many can’t think of a time that they aren’t listening to something unless they are forced to take their earbuds out. They hate the “silence” and tell me it’s uncomfortable. In my office, most of my colleagues have something in their ears all the time so that they can “concentrate.” I, too, often go through the world with someone else’s voice in my ears.
My broken wrist may have broken that spell for me. Sure, I miss my podcasts, but I am enjoying the space that I’ve found. I can’t call it silence because the world is full of sounds, I’d just forgotten that they could be enough. Maybe I’ll get sick of it soon. Maybe I’ll slip back into the sense that every minute needs to count as two – or that every minute is mine to control in some way – but I’m starting to think that maybe I won’t. I think that maybe it’s time for me to remember that the world provides its own soundtrack and that my mind is happy there. It turns out, I like the space that comes from being a little tuned out.
Persistence and Pedagogy 
I love how this slice took us so many places — from your cautious first walk out after breaking your wrist to the realization that there was so much to listen to without headphones in on a walk in your neighborhood, to a flashback of when iPods came into being (I remember the subway ads so vividly, with the colored background and black silhouette and white headphones), to a reflection on how many of us walk around with a personal soundtrack every day.
Also, my dad broke both wrists as a kid by jumping off a swing and always told us how miserable he was. I think he switched schools too during that time, so was the new kid with casts on. He told it mostly as a cautionary tale so we wouldn’t jump off the swings ourselves!
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omg I cannot imagine breaking both wrists at the same time – your poor dad!
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Your slice reminds me of Glennon Doyle, writing something she told her children when they said their best ideas came to them in the shower. I went and looked the exact excerpt because I loved it so much:
“it could be the shower’s the only place you’re not plugged in, so you can hear your own thoughts in there.”
She looked at me and said “hu?”
“That thing that happens to you in the shower babe. It’s called ‘thinking’ it’s something folks did before google. Thinking is like, it’s like googling your own brain.”
“Oh” She said, “Cool”
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Reading this is like a trip through your thinking – about the wrists, then stepping back from the dog-walking and negotiating replacements, the return to dog walking – how it started, how it ended up; then to Paris to now and it felt easy to listen and lurk. Glad to hear that you’re finding a new appreciation for surround-sound live.
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