“The best part of eating out again,” said my friend David, “was just being among fellow diners.” He was describing the fellowship rediscovered in his first post-pandemic return to a restaurant. Of particular pleasure were the familiar ambient sounds that had been missing from life during the year “the locust had eaten.” How we forget the texture of being among other people again.

Consider the restaurant sounds you may not have heard in a while – the hubbub of tabled conversation; the clatter of dishes, taking of orders, clink of glasses. The fragrances! What’s cooking? Breaking bread together alone is restorative – a reunion with the companionship of being among others, dispensing with the imposed remote, virtual or distanced artificial congregation. We are rubbing elbows, occupying the same space, restoring the old background noises. Close encounters of the restaurant kind. A table in the wilderness.

Oh, to hear “Do you have a reservation? Your table is ready. May I show you the menu? Would you like to hear our specials tonight?” To think, “What that couple are having certainly looks good. Yes, I’ll have what they’re having.” It made me think of other public-place, congregant sounds. I took a mental tour of what I had been missing.

Another: The crack of the bat and, as the ball lands over the head of the stretching second baseman’s glove, the rising roar of the crowd – a base hit, a double. The crowd’s clapping, then the settling back as the ballpark organist takes up the ascending chords of the chant and the next batter digs in for his ups, and maybe an RBI – and it’s not the canned crowd noises from an archived game. It’s this game. Now. We are among one another, again, not the crowd of cutouts sitting in the stands. It’s the real thing responding to this game. Time out is over. Play ball.

Even the non-sound of the used book store and solitary shoppers returning to the stacks, thumbing pages and pulling a surprise title off the shelf. It’s the feeling of group browsing. It might be the ambient non-sound of perusing together in a place we expect to be a little dark, a little musty and comfortable. Ditto the library. Oh, to sit among the quiet readers in the comfy chairs of the periodical section. Who knew it would be a thing?

And then congregations themselves! Church! Hang up the virtual choir and let harmony ring in actual choral singing. Just sitting in the pews en masse is comfort. Responsive readings, fellowship is communion with ourselves. Words of hymns are beneficial, but there is a gestalt to singing together that goes beyond. timbre of voices and the swell of the accompaniment.

These ambient sounds we miss are not our solo sounds; the forlorn fridge hums; the dog’s tail beats the floor; the fire crackles in the grate. The ambience of solitude that used to sound so comforting when life was overstimulating and hectic. We’ve had enough of all that, at long last, for now.

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