A Square Inch of Silence (Suzanne Forster)

Silence isn’t something I usually spend a lot of time thinking about, but it’s been on my mind all week, ever since I read an article about what a small band of adventurers claim is the quietest place in the continental United States. Actually it wasn’t the business about silence that first caught my eye when I saw the article. It was the photograph of Hurricane Ridge, nearly hidden in a canopy of mist, just the tips of the tallest evergreens jutting through a ghostly blanket of white.

The eerily beautiful scene resembles something out of our primordial past, evoking images of the dawn of time, and it seems the perfect setting for this most quiet of places. It’s also a part of my past. Hurricane Ridge is part of the serene Olympic National Forest in the state of Washington, which is where I was born and raised, married and gave birth, and eventually left for warmer climes. But I did spend twenty-three years there and I took many trips to the rain forest in that time. However, I didn’t know about the silence.

No one told me about the square inch of silence in the vast Olympic National Park because no one knew it existed until Gordon Hempton, an Emmy-winning natural-sounds recording artist, discovered it in 2005. According to the article, Hempton felt bombarded by the noisiness of our world after recovering from a temporary bout of deafness, and he declared it his mission to find a “sanctuary of quiet.” He chose the Hoh Rain Forest, a primeval setting, if ever there was one.

I didn’t know electricity made noise. But apparently when people are asked to hum it’s almost always in the key of B-natural. That’s the same sound that electrical currents make as they blast through the wires and circuits of our lives. I also didn’t know that today’s car stereos can easily out-amplify the speakers the Beatles used in Shea Stadium. Today, we are surrounded by roaring electricity, blaring sound systems, screeching phones, babbling headsets, rumbling engines, and noise noise noise.

Is one square inch of perfect silence sounding better to you? That was Hempton’s thought, too. In his quest for quiet, he theorized that if noise could expand to fill all the nooks and crannies of our lives, then maybe silence could as well. He called it the One Square Inch Project and he’s quoted as saying: “One Square Inch is just that, an inch I’m defending from noise.”

According to Edward Readicker-Henderson, author of the article, the point was this: “Protect just one inch from sound and the quiet should radiate even more powerfully than noise does.”

Already, I love this idea. A man recovering from deafness and three of his friends, who call themselves “sound pilgrims” set out to scour the Olympic National Forest in my home state for a square inch of real estate that has only radiating silence to recommend it. A worthy mission, to my way of thinking, and I was wishing them well as I read about their quest, but as it turned out, not an easy mission, and sadly they never quite found their perfect sanctuary.

What they did find was Mount Tom Creek Meadow, a tiny valley where their noise meters began to register the lowest levels of their trek. As Readicker-Henderson puts it, the ringing in his ears was the loudest thing that could be heard. Deep in this valley, hidden in an old elk trail, they staked out their square inch, and for the space of minutes, they heard nothing but the most intimate sounds of nature and their own breathing. This was it, a noiseless Nirvana. They believed they’d found it until the buzz of an engine and the shadow of wings turned out to be a small plane flying north.

Of course, they were crushed, and so was I. I hope the sound pilgrims continue their quest, mapping the globe and all its quiet places, but meanwhile, they’ve sparked my imagination and my hunger for some deep, soothing silence, even if it’s only for a matter of moments. They say when it’s that quiet all you can hear are the workings of your own mind—and being forced into such intimate conversations is how you truly come to know yourself.

You can bet my next visit home will include at least one trip to the Hoh Rain Forest, and I promise to report back on whether or not I find the Inch. I already know it’s going to be a lovely, renewing experience, regardless, and what I’m really hoping to find is that space of silence inside where I can retreat and regroup no matter where I am in the world. But wouldn’t it be cool if they’re right about silence being more powerful than noise?

Quiet blessings,

Suz