Noise Pollution

When Jack was just a year old, we sat on the deck on a windy, sunny day, him on my lap, watching the white caps out on Puget Sound mimicking the sudden flash of white gull wings. Sailboats were zipping hither and thither.  But what caught his attention was the wind in the maple trees next door.  Both he and his twin sister had learned some sign language, so I waved my hand and made a wind sound to indicate that I too saw the leaves dancing, and he responded with the same gesture. 

“Wind,” I said. 

That was the start of it.  He’d point out the awning flapping on windy days, or the trees waving to him.  He loved the fan blowing in his face. All things wild and beautiful.  A week or so ago, he came with his family to our property in the Cascades.  He’d been there before, but of course didn’t remember it.  When Mommy and Daddy got him out of the car, he stood in awe, then stretched out his arms and turned in circles.  His delight in the forest and mountains was clear.  He twirled and looked at every vista of the lake, the rocks and little flowers, arms out.

That’s kind of how I feel up there too, Jack.  It’s wild, windy, beautiful. One startling aspect of it is the silence that allows us to isolate delightful sounds. We can hear our creek chattering down the gultch, elk bugling in the fall (not that we need silence to hear THAT), turkeys gobbling to each other as they scurry up the hill, or just this past week heard a ruffled grouse drumming.  What’s rather startling is to hear the rush of wind over the feathers of a crow as she flies past, as in town there is so much ambient noise a crow could fly right up our ears and we’d not hear it.

Back in Seattle, we live next to the airport, and since they built the third runway, the airplanes roar very close indeed.  We are simply surrounded by noise.  Bathroom fans, HVACs, even constant music. Nearly everyone has earbuds these days.  Must we have so much sound?  Are the music listeners needing more sound, or are they merely shutting out the distasteful?  Some Musack is just plain awful, I find when I’m at the fabric store trying to calculate yardage, I have to put in earplugs to tune it out.  Even nature sounds can be irksome, like the barking sea lions at 3AM when we have the windows open in the summer.

This past week, up at the normally peaceful silent Cascade property, our neighbors decided to put in a well.  So right in front of us, KA-CHUNGA-HISS, KA-CHUNGA-HISS, for three days.  Friends were going to be joining us for some country camping and we called them and agreed to do it some other time.  To get away from the noise, we went on a hike, and discovered our chosen trail went right by a logging operation with about ten chain saws buzzing away.  We all need water, so wells are needed, I am not giving up wood products anytime soon, I fly on airplanes and drive a car, so can’t begrudge these operations.  Technically.

So what sounds bug you?  Traffic, loud fans, Musack in stores?  How do you shut it out, without adding more sound? I suspect that Time has a cure for noise, so I’d better be careful what I wish for. 

Meanwhile, Jack and Ellie are over and the place is anything but quiet.  Toys have all sorts of ways to beep, wail, and ring in order to thrill toddlers, whose delight in said beeping, wailing and ringing must be exclaimed over in toddler-ese, mimicked and amplified.  There are books to be read aloud, and songs to sing.  Running, screeching, asking questions is what little people are all about.

Noise?  What noise?  Nonni only hears music to her ears.