It’s Okay to Leave Your Headphones at Home
How one writer learned an accidental lesson in the joys of silence
A striking thing happened to me the day after Christmas while I was visiting home. In the middle of a long run on a grassy levee that walls off an untamed estuary from the rest of New Orleans, my phone died. The music blaring from my Bluetooth earbuds ceased with an impolite and halted me mid-stride. Already sweating, I became even clammier at the thought of running multiple miles to get back home in dead, early-morning silence. No high-bpm jams from Travis Scott or the Pretenders to ward off boredom and propel my knees along. With no other
