You say Cacophony, I say Tranquility
How my external environment can set off an orchestra in my head.
As much as I find solitude from the gentle sounds of tweeting birds in the trees and rushing waves most comfortable, I have a love for specific loud noises that actually bring me peace. This is coming from a misophonic, my aversion to certain noises like gum snapping, whistling and chewing. I didn’t think I had a fondness for some of the loud noises. I can distinguish sounds, but I hear them all at once, especially during stressful times.
I drew a noise map of my life at work at a city community college when I was in a cubicle.
I can hear the conference table chatting about who does nothing and who is having an affair. The front office staff saying to our prospective students, “no we don’t take deaf people,” (I cringed and ran up and grabbed the phone), the accounting chick in front of me saying she needs another Xanax, and then there’s me- I had a fan on and NPR talking to me, so I stayed calm ensuring I don’t answer questions that were not meant for me from the outside world of my cubicle.
When I moved into my office, I heard the staff mumbling their good mornings as they hung their scratchy wool coats and ski jackets on top of the metal hangers, clinking and clanking that made my skin crawl. I made sure I always had my four windows open.
I heard the students as they passed by my windows listening to their music, complaining about a professor and every damn day at the end of his shift as a public safety officer, this guy would be whistling from one end of the campus to the public safety office which was, of course below my window. There were times I would finish the students’ conversations in my head, assuming what they would eventually say as they left my ear shot.
I have a few loud noises that entertain me.
Screaming Babies
I would do anything to help a baby, offer my breast milk if I had any left from my sons. Babies that are crying need love and care. When I was in fact breastfeeding, other cries from stranger’s babies made me lactate. The beauty of a baby’s first breath from amniotic fluid to Mother Earth’s air is a noise like no other. Funny, I act like W.C.Fields with certain aged kids, even though I designed and ran after school programs. Their whiny voices would get me especially the little girls. I would ask them if they’d like a quarter to be quiet and they turned out to be gamblers. One upping me till I gave up the dollar, then they’d run away giggling piercing my ears anyway.
ROCK & ROLL
I was brought up on rock & roll by my older siblings. It was magical. Then I was a disc jockey in my early days in college and beyond. The clubs I went to in NYC were so loud the speakers and I would rock back and forth as if in religious prayer, my eyes closed and in synch.
When I saw Led Zeppelin at Madison Square Garden around 40 years ago (No Quarter: Jimmy Page and Robert Plant Unledded), I was in a state of frenetic movement listening to the Middle Eastern and Moroccan-influenced Led Zep tunes, I was in awe, my body was the music, and it was beautiful. Especially because I was belly dancing at the time.
Movement and music is prayer.
Coincidently, with alpha wave music and binaural beats; I am lulled into connecting my body and mind finding my source of energy. There is no need to listen to this loud to experience pure joy and solitude, but headphones can put you in the right space.
Back to the loud noises that please me.
The Infallible Garbage Truck
The moment I hear screeching compressed air brakes pull up to my house, I rush to the window and gaze at the work these big trucks do. The sight and sound bring me peace knowing that the supermen who take the garbage are in fact taking away death and the debris of my soul. Every kitchen bag filled with leftovers of uneaten chicken and sour milk goes right to the truck. Where it then goes is not for me to contemplate here. But the removal is like taking a splinter out of one’s finger. Like an ice cream truck, I hear the brakes from a few blocks over and I anticipate getting rid of mental and physical carcasses. I am well pleased.
Garbage trucks look like dinosaur-ish insects. Or better yet Transformers, like the ones I loved as a kid on the television back in the early seventies.
No matter what time of day or night, I welcome the trucks on my block. In the middle of the night when the recycling trucks come, the hiss of the distant brakes become embedded into my dreams, probably of hissing cats having cat fights.
During snowstorms they transform into plows quietly this time plowing the snow away from the street. I can imagine their beady eyes lit up like Christmas lights transforming from garbage truck to plow machine. It warms my heart with the now whispering brakes digging us out to safety.
Construction and the For Sale sign
Since I am selling my home, I have construction men in and out of the house.
I do not care how much noise it makes as they drag every piece of crap from the garage to the dumpster. What a gratifying feeling this is. It is as if a bottle of champagne blows its cork and all are happy. The sounds of the clinking and clanking for this is like Mozart for me. Every old piece of equipment meant to be fixed up 20 years ago is gone, the flats on the kids’ bikes can now come down from the rafters and say good riddance. And how many rakes does one need when they have a gardener?
I know that change is happening right in front of my eyes, and I am again, well pleased. Another reason is the raw fact that everyone is a hoarder on some level, and we don’t need what we don’t use. That garage was crying for help, and it is finally breathing now, as am I.
During the deconstruction and removal of my ceiling, I hear the hammer claw beat down the destroyed drywall from a storm, breaking up old scenes from years past. The worker is consistent like a drummer as was my determination to forget parts of the past. The jab saw going in and out cuts open the whispered wounds letting out sighs of relief. And the wincing voice of the wet dry vac makes it all disappear save for the nails scratching down the blackboard in my brain.
I find peace in moments of loud noisy machines as they deconstruct what was once and potentially rebirth into another form.
I look forward to the last open house when I can comfortably sign away this home that is slowly but surely becoming a house for another mother.
I am ready to give it up to move to the small cabin in the woods so I can listen to the wind talk.
