The November weather was perfect when we hosted a Thanksgiving Eve get-together a few years ago. We counted 50 people in our yard, so many that I am sure that I could do little more than greet each one. That was the year of the clan dinner: we split off into tribes for the main meal on Thanksgiving day, before 40 people in the clan convened for dessert and the annual viewing of Christmas Vacation.
We celebrated Thanksgiving 2020 with six people: our immediate household and my sister-in-law. We ate the traditional fares outside. ED had planned several activities: as always, a tournament of bags. Acknowledgement of thanks around the dinner table. Games in the living room. A murder mystery to solve (Mowgli and I checked out of that one). And the inevitable Christmas Vacation which we shared via messaging with the extended family. At the end of the day, I retreated to my room exhausted.
Mowgli is friendly, fun, funny, compassionate, and smart. What can’t be ignored is the social immaturity and thus, difficulty making friends from his own age group, thanks to ADD. He met a boy two years his junior at the park a few days before Thanksgiving. ED met the step-father, agreed with limits of play (e.g. no indoor play), and the boys spent the next few days together.
It is a relief to hear sounds of children having fun, being active. But aging brings on decreased tolerance for incessant noise. My sister-in-law offered that difficulty of the mind to filter out unnecessary sound as we age may be responsible. Oops, my daughter reminded me that this is a sign of dementia.
My tolerance for noise has never been high. I don’t like background music as my mind immediately focuses on it, perhaps because of my music background. A lifelong mild hearing loss makes sound localization difficult, demanding attention when I am interrupted. Unremitting noise wears me out physically and mentally.
Noise is simply unwanted sound. But after a full day, even the sound of laughter is noise.
