Tuesday, July 31, 2018

NOISE

                                                           

It’s 10 p.m. in the busy twin cities suburb where I used to live. I picked this time because although it’s not really the still of the night, it is a time when life for many of us is winding down and we’re ready to call it a day. There really is no still of the night here in the big city. I am lying in bed with the window open. You learn to ignore the ambient noise of living in close quarters like this with so many people but just for the next few minutes I’ll try to identify for you all that I can hear. Not everything I hear has to do with man’s activities’ but that’s true wherever you are.
            
I can hear a television set in my neighbor’s house. From my bedroom window to theirs, it is less then 35 feet. I also hear his sprinkler spitting water on his front yard and people talking in the driveway. A dog is barking somewhere up the block and there are sirens from the fire station a half a mile away. A train is traveling across the river a mile away and it’s actually in another city. The sound of cars and trucks on the busy highway three blocks away is ongoing and never stops. Cars go by the front of my house, 40 feet away, on average once every minute. Somewhere fire works are exploding or at least I hope its fireworks. I hear tires squealing and an engine racing down the street. I hear my refrigerator running and two clocks ticking, I hear a crow cawing and ducks quacking on the pond out back. I hear the wind rustling in the treetops and the sound of a distant air conditioner laboring. I hear the cat licking itself as it sits on the end of the bed and my wife’s shallow breathing as she sleeps beside me. I hear the distant sound of an airliner passing high overhead, descending toward the airport twenty five miles away and somewhere, someone, is running a lawn mower even though its dark. Go figure. Otherwise it’s quiet

Tonight I’m in my cabin on a small lake in Northern Minnesota. Once again it’s ten p.m. and once again I’m lying in bed with the window open. My Partner has passed so it’s only my breathing. The clock is still ticking and an appliance is running. I also hear a boat motor out on the lake as someone is trolling for fish. I do hear birds chirping and waves breaking quietly on the shoreline, while all the while a soft breeze blows through the pine trees like a whisper. Otherwise it’s restfully quiet.

A few years back I took a trip to the boundary waters in Northern Minnesota. We were camped on an island, just four of us. That night I walked away from the campsite and my companions and found a perch on a rock next to the lake maybe a city block away. It was a quiet evening in the wilderness and I was admiring how bright the stars were. Then as now, I listened for the sounds of the forest. I could hear only my own breathing, otherwise it was eerily quiet.

Think about the last time you heard nothing. Was it restful or was it eerie? Maybe its what you get used to and what you can tune out. I sat in a park, on a bench, in Wadena Minnesota one day, next to the railroad tracks talking with a man. Every twenty minutes a train came through and the ground literarily shook beneath your feet. The noise was ear splitting. A few feet away an old lady sat on another park bench sleeping, oblivious to the trains. “One more day in Mikes meandering mind.”


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