Quiet places. Somewhere that you may like to go. Somewhere I like to go.
But what is a quiet place? Of course, it may be a place physically devoid of sound, a vacuum of nothing. Such places are rare, and somewhat elusive.
No. To me, a quiet place has sound, but lacks noise.
A quiet place may be in the bush, with birdsong, a gentle rustle of the breeze in the treetops, a creek simply being a creek.
Perhaps it’s a gravel road in the country at that time where the mist is still there but the sun is gently encouraging it to retire for the morning.
It may be a place quiet in tone: the brown, the green, the grey, the yellow.
It may be artificially quiet. That special place; but now where the tones have been blackened, and the birdsong relocated until The Noise displaces them once again.
A quiet place will be different to us all. To me, quintessentially, it is a place where the noise of life, of stress, of work, of machines, of conflict – is gone, and my mind is quiet. That is my quiet place.
I hope you enjoy journeying to my quiet places.
Series Three: Rainforests in a fragmented landscape
The north-east is fragmented. The gentle hum of the evergreen paddocks, with orchestrations of cow and cockatoo, gives way to the loudness of chainsaws and dozers, and the busy teenage chatter of monocultured plantation vibrating in the wind.
But between the noise of land management and quadbikes lies fragments of what was. A quiet green and brown, with mists of blue and yellow and grey. Still, where the smell of quiet is damp and earthy. The myrtles and sassafras, old and wise. My mind quietens.
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