One of the things most valuable to me when I come to The Ranch - both when my parents lived here and now when I am here by myself - is the quiet.
Inside the house - early now as I write this - there is nothing but the sound of the refrigerator running, the clocks ticking, and the hiss and pop of the wood stove as the fire burns. Were I to have the doors open as I did earlier in the Summer, one would here the crunch of the grass as the deer make their rounds or possibly a hare or two, followed by birdsong as the sun started to come up (it is a little cold for that at the moment). Outside the house, one is generally surrounded by the sound of birdsong and wind in the non-rainy times, or just wind and rain during the rainy season. There are periods where far away, one can hear cars and dogs and chainsaws and the jets that fly overhead, but those still (thankfully) remain fairly distant noises and periodic occurrences.
I compare this to the dull roar of sound that fills the air at New Home.
We live not all that far from the intersection of two major highways, so background traffic noise is present. Throughout the day, vehicles whip past our front window - sometimes in tranches, early in the morning when people are leaving for school and work and then again in the afternoon/evening for people returning from the same, and sometimes the stop and start of the delivery vehicles which have become almost ubiquitous in every neighborhood. The same sorts of noise occur here as well as at The Ranch - barking dogs, yard equipment (not chainsaws of course, but mowers and weed eaters and leaf blowers), jets flying overhead. In a way I suppose, not that different.
Except in in the extent of it. At The Ranch, noise is an interlude between the existing background noise of Nature. In New Home, noise is the 24 hour background to one's life. And one does not fully grasp this until one is removed from one or the other.
Oddly enough, one of the great comments that people make when they are out "in the wild" is how silent it is, as if it were a valuable thing - and yet they return to the sounds of civilization without a thought in their mind. Silence has become the exception in our society, not the rule.
It strikes people in odd ways. There are some who simply cannot just exist in silence - they inevitably have to have some kind of background noise - music, white noise, talk shows - going on at all times. For some, I think, it provides a certain amount of "drowning out" of other things to allow them to focus. I find that sort of thing highly confusing as I can really only concentrate on one thing at at time. For me if there is something in the background, I will inevitably focus on that.
Is there a right answer? As with most things, I am not sure. There are people who thrive in urban environments with background noise, to the point that they cannot function in the silence of the wild. And there are those who need nothing except the silence of the wild to function.
Silence is nice. At bedtime I remove my hearing aids and place them in a charger and it becomes very quiet. Not deaf silence but my natural hearing is very subdued. Like many folks mine is a developing condition of age. I stopped hearing the whizzing sound of cicadas during late summer in my fourth decade. I thought little of it. Maybe they’re aren’t as many around when I was younger? In my fifties I realized human dialog was difficult to understand in various settings and bought into the hearing aid scene. It was a miracle! The cicadas returned! I could write a long story about the revelations but I will spare you.
ReplyDeletePlaying music is my requirement for background noise. Playing music I like is my background distraction. Picking up an instrument and making music is my retirement plans, if I ever get to retirement….
Franknbean
FnB, my father used hearing aides for many many years due to hearing loss caused by his job (fortunately at some point, he received a settlement and they were paid for). I do remember him mentioning how he could hear the birds again.
DeleteI will be honest that it has made me much more conscious of my hearing and sound levels.
I've blogged about this many times in the past but I think it was before I met you TB. I always enjoyed the silence of the farmhouse and it was made worse because we never had a television. So in the evenings, we always just read for entertainment.
ReplyDeleteOccasionally we would have guests that would stay for lengthier visits of several nights and after the first night or so, conversation would drag and we would pull out our books. The combination of the silence and not reading books for entertainment, would quickly drive our guests nuts and my brother and I often bet on how early they would cut their stay short.
Another memory that readily comes to mind is the first night I spent away from the farm at college in a large urban setting. It was several night before I finally fell asleep out of pure exhaustion because the noise kept me up all night. Now I look back and wished I was so thoroughly adapted to silence again but after years of somewhat urban dwelling, I'm not. When I'm on the farm, I can feel the weight of the silence upon me. It isn't uncomfortable but still something I feel where as I never did feel it living there.
Ed, I think you have mentioned it at least once or twice. My grandparent's cabin is much like what you described (although more people around) in that there is no television so one reads, talks, or sits outside (or fishes for trout, of course).
DeleteThat is an interesting observation about being unable to truly re-adapt. Having never experienced the sort of deep silence you describe, I merely seem to transition between the two environments fairly seamlessly.
That old divide, country mouse or city mouse?
ReplyDeletePartially Nylon12, partially. But also between people that need a level of background noise in their lives and those that do not. I suspect that cuts across living environments, but to your point also has some correlation to where they live. I suspect there are city folk that soundproof their homes and country folk that have something in background every moment they are awake.
DeleteSilence is and isn't a real fun thing for me. I love the sound of the wind out in west Texas, with trees or without. The waving grass, dust eddies, birds and nothing much else. But I don't usually spend hours enjoying it.... something..... drives me away.
ReplyDeleteI have a slave galley drummer in my head. If I'm not working, reading, learning or putzing around, I'm not rowing to the beat. I also have moderate tinnitus. I always have a buzz in my ears. Worse if I'm tired. Thankfully, ham radio taught me to listen "around" the buzz. Hard to explain unless you've spent hours searching for signals in static. Your brain is a great "filter" if you can train it. I think that may explain why folks need background clutter. Their brains are trained to have it.
But sweet silence is welcome. Sometimes, if I'm up late at night, I'll sight on the porch and just listen to the night. Our little burg does go to sleep about midnight until 0500 or so.... If the raccoons stay in someone else's trash cans...
STxAR, The Ravishing Mrs. TB has developed a case of tinnitus as well (no known cause; everything internally checks out alright). I suspect that some of her need for background noise stems from this currently.
DeleteI, too, can just sit out at night and listen to...well, nothing. Here there are no cars after around 5 PM at the latest until 9 AM or later, mostly when The Cowboy arrives for his morning cattle check in.
It's funny, you describe the sounds but I 'see' the noise. I guess it's a visual thing of don't forgot the 'view' of the landscape ... and sometimes it doesn't always go hand-in-hand with what you hear. Like the little screech owl that decides to interact (ie: scare) the silly human who ventures outdoors in the dark with a sack of trash. Pterodactyls .... that's all I can see as my life flashes before my eyes ;-)
ReplyDelete~hobo
Hobo, I understand that and and the same. Especially when I am listening to music, I can almost "see" when I close my eyes - which is why, when I sang publicly more frequently in worship teams and choirs, I sang with my eyes such (Works well if you know the words, less well if you do not).
DeletePterodactyls...My version here is hearing the deer move through the brush and thinking "Dear Lord, it is a bear or mountain lion!"
I doubt that many city (or even town) dwellers know what real silence is - that almost physical lack of an always there background that you frequently get in deep countryside. My formative years were spent on a farm far removed from any not-country sounds, and the total lack of any kind of noise on a quiet evening/night was something you could almost feel and taste as well as hear. Unfortunately, the airport some 12 miles away expanded dramatically as I entered my teens, the flight path was right over our farm , and we were just far enough away for the planes to be on full power to climb to crusing altitude as they passed over us. That was the end of our real silence, the flights were sufficiently frequent that one was always conscious of waiting for the disturbance from the next one.
ReplyDeleteWill, the starkness of silence on my hikes into the Grand Canyon and to Mt. Whitney may approximate the silence of which you speak - without speech, there is only the crunch of gravel/dirt/stone and the creak of packs.
DeleteHere, too, we are in a flight path. I assume - like your case - the flight path was much less used 50 years ago than it is today.
Air Traffic Control (ATC), in this case, tower will redirect departing aircraft so they are not always climbing out on the same corridor.
DeleteThis is separate from establishment of a fixed noise sensitive location with ground-based noise meters (which can involve fines against the intruding aircraft above a certain decibel). This would come when all else has failed, or typically, when the city's powers that be have no desire to be civil.
And forbid those loatheful persons (spit) who constantly, continually send angry missives to the airport admin. Nosey busybodies they are.
Anyway, the airport will work with the community.
One of the great challenges of flying into Long Beach Airport is that they have very specific hours (maybe as early as 9 PM). Woe betide you if you are the 8:50 PM flight out and there is a delay.
DeleteI dearly adore the silence. Of course, there is always sound, but it is not noise.
ReplyDeleteOn quiet nights I can hear the train 11 miles distant. I hear a night owl two fields away. I hear road traffic on the two lane 4 miles away.
That is a problem. Because when I take to the highway to get to town, the entire experience is an assault on my senses. At the filling station, battery crept into my mind when an idiot pulled up in his lifted truck (sky hook) with rythmic noise pounding out the speakers. He then proceeded to yell at the younguns in his truck, then yell across the way to his buddy. I guess he needs loud in his life. I have my doubts that he ever hears the wind of a bird fly by or the natural sounds of animals on their prowl. He's only an example of the manner in which so many people live their oxygen thieving existence.
God has blessed me with this hearing, also with fine eyes. My task is to keep from the tempration when my solitude is taken by thoughtless barbarians.
How wonderful. I have to confess the older I get, the less tolerant I am of noise-producing environments. I either do not go at all or leave them as quickly as I am able.
DeleteI think the quietest place I ever experienced was Canyonlands, Utah. But even there, there wasn't the sound of nothing because it was so quiet I could hear my ears ringing. Now, too often, the noisiness is my own mind, i.e. my thoughts and arguments with myself. I think that's why I try to simply stop and listen when I'm outdoors. It refocuses me.
ReplyDeleteAlong similar lines, something I've never understood is people who require music (or some such) when they are studying. How this is necessary to concentrate on the material at hand puzzles me. But then, I'm not a good multitasker.
Leigh, the parts of the trail on Mt. Whitney when I was alone was as quiet as I can remember it being in forever. As you state it, the ringing of my own ears.
DeleteThere are times when I am working that a little background music helps me work. It has to be a little and instrumental as I will start focusing on the words or music (and not on the work). And, I can only listen for about 30 minutes tops. This is the same problem I have with podcasts as well - 30 minutes or so in, and I am done.
That's what I like when the power goes out - it gets *really* silent. Good times.
ReplyDeleteJohn - The same. Usually it takes me a minute or to going from "something's different" to "Oh....".
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