Sunday Morning Muse with Radio

I don't own a television. I donated my last one, a 27 inch  with its  VCR,  to Copper Canyon Press for their intern house after I realized that I had gone a whole year without turning it on. I don't miss having a TV, and I don't use my computer as a substitute, so I also don't watch movies; the last movie I saw was when I  lived in Tacoma, a town with a grand movie theater, and that's now more than 3 years ago. I don't know how or why this happened, it just did. I will watch reruns of Star Trek or Buffy, if I can get them, whenever I'm in a hotel, and that's about it for visual entertainment. 

What I still do regularly is listen to the radio. I have a radio in the kitchen, office, and bedroom, sometime they are all on in tandem. My favorite radio is one that my parents listened to before I was born, still working fine. When I am home, I listen to radio often during my day and sometimes leave it on at night, letting it invade my dreams. And though I also crave silence, or the ambient noise of the outdoors, radio is my companion, my familiar.  Since I moved to Sequim, where my home faces north towards Canada, I mostly listen to the CBC, which has some fine programming (such as Writers and Company, Your DNTO, As it Happens) and a great all-music station.  There are also a few independent podcasts that I tune into regularly, usually on an NPR station:  This American Life, The Moth Radio Hour,  Selected Shorts,  Radio Lab, and Snap Judgement.  Although I don't  plug into popular culture or sports, I don't seem to be missing anything, even though there are a lot of names bandied about that mean nothing to me. 

What have I gained from this ? I don't know, undoubtedly it gains me time to use for other endeavors, such as writing poems. I read lots of books.  I feel more comfortable with myself, and less anxious about what's going on in the world that I have no control over. I avoid coming into visual contact with a lot of gratuitous violence and  human cruelty.  I also avoid small talk, because I mostly don't know the references.  

As I write this, the radio is on in the background. Some of my favorite radio shows air on Sundays.  I don't have a point to make here, or a judgment, but I think living without television has opened up my life in satisfying ways. 

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