I took an anatomy class in high school and was amazed by how much my body was doing without my knowledge. “Thanks body,” I found myself repeating, after learning about the workings of my heart and lungs, my toes pulling up, my esophagus pushing down, and everything in between. Like so many other things, we don’t seem to understand or appreciate them until we start to lose our faculties. The fact that our bodies seem so silent and symetrical is a testament to how cleanly our body is functioning, every day.

I talked to a neurobiologist friend today who said that brains sound like a low clicking, and that the ringing in our ears is the sound of hair cells dying and our hearing range diminishing. In quiet moments I’ve been thinking lately about how the pitch of the ringing in your ears creates the harmony that you hear throughout your life. In moments of pain, when all you can hear is your body it seems to cry and scream, like a child demanding attention. Other times it is quieter, but no less busy. The breathing, pumping, generating, destroying, reinforcing, exploring, it’s not silent, nor is it forgettable.

Does aging have a sound? Does the voice in your head grow older as you do? Who else can hear if your bones click and creak? Do men sound different from women?