“Is it noisy?” a newly acquainted friend at a party asked.

Almost by default, I always say that it is. Sometimes, I say, I want to move; I am tired of it. Yet there was something different about the way he asked it—whether it because I have been focusing on possibility of empathy lately or because I have realized that I am a city person at heart, this time I said, “It is, but I have gotten so used to it. That when it’s silent, like when traveling, I am weirded out.”

But was I really weirded out when I traveled to the middle of nowhere and it was suddenly quiet? Or staying at my parents’ house in suburban Bay Area where noise has been driven away by the suburban design of large houses on large residential streets with long snaking private driveways? I remember that there was a night in Ohio, deep in what I thought was rural, where I couldn’t sleep. It probably was that the bed was uncomfortable. But it was the silence, knowing that I had no cellular phone access, and then the noise. The noise then was the footsteps of the dogs and cats pattering from the main house’s porch to the rooftop of my room. I heard howls, meows, bark, all echoing into the night.

But in the city, I prefer the sounds of faint words from people, walking, the high heels clapping against the concrete, and the air rushing from passing cars, and the low rumble of engines. It reminds me that the city is alive. Quiet, more now that night is rapidly approaching. But it’s alive. People are going somewhere, finding something, discovering a wonder. It is alive, and with my ears, I hear the beat of the city, pulsing without pause.