Tag: noise

What’s that noise?

Removing my hearing aids at night decreases the volume but distorts the sound. So I wonder, what is all that noise? Is Mowgli working out, jumping off his loft, dancing? What? At 2:00 in the morning, shouldn’t he be asleep?

The master bedroom is spacious and bright, sliding doors opening to the patio and pool. It is where I spend most of my time as the family occupies various regions of the house. Situated off the end of the hall, away from the common areas, it should be a quiet retreat. Should be.

Learning from experience

At an earlier time in our family life, before baby monitors, we had a chance to live in a beautiful river-view home. We rejected that abode because our room would be three floors up from our two young girls.

When we first moved to Arizona, I declined a floor plan that placed C-boy at the opposite end of an otherwise ideal house. At six years old and virtually an only child, he still crawled in with us every night. Imagining him traversing the house in the dark made me uncomfortable.

Scouting out this shared home, ED expressed concern that the boys would be upstairs while she was down.  I convinced her that, because there were two of them, it would not be a problem. For reasons I cannot recall, Mowgli took the bedroom immediately above ours.

Reality

Shortly after moving in, Mowgli’s cry for his mother awakened me. I ran upstairs to discover that Mowgli was throwing up. After calming him, I alerted ED, retrieved cleaning supplies, and cleaned up while she took care of Mowgli. My years as a medical Speech-Language Pathologist had prepared me for vomit.

ED’s room across the hall from ours is wonderfully positioned to avoid noise from overhead, while ours is perfect to receive it. Removing my hearing aids at night decreases the volume but distorts the sound. So I wonder, what is all that noise? Is Mowgli working out, jumping off his loft, dancing? What? At 2:00 in the morning, shouldn’t he be asleep?

It’s not that noisy

A good grandmother might climb the steps and quell the noise. After all, this teen with ADD should be getting a good night’s rest. But so should this old lady.

I roll over onto my better ear and make a mental note to mention it to ED.   

Will I be able to return to normal?

When our group of close family friends was confined to a Wisconsin cabin one rainy day many years ago, one of the adults was dubbed “Crabby Old Aunt Pat” after scolding the two young boys who were being boys. Normally calm and patient, Pat reached her breaking point as the gloom and confinement intensified the antics of the restless children. We parents, inure to the arrhythmia of the dribbling basketball and laughter, were relieved that the boys were leaving us to our books. Pat has accepted the moniker with good humor, and the incident has become legend.

During this current shelter-in-place, life has literally quieted. There are fewer aircraft disturbing the skies. The traffic behind our house on the street that leads to the local school is noticeably lessened. The boys are home but upstairs most of the time, out of sight and sound. Friends and family are no longer stopping by.

The major sounds in our house consist of our daughter on her phone for work and our younger grandson distance learning or watching Youtube. I have become accustomed to quiet which is my natural preference.  

The cacophony reverberating from the Starbucks walk-up window this past Sunday hit me like a wall. The loud music (definitely something later than the ‘90’s) required that I call out and wave for service. With my voice muffled by my mask and overwhelmed by the decibels of the music, I repeated my name three times for the barista to understand and retrieve my order. The whole exchange took less than one minute but was long enough to make me uncomfortable, triggering anxiety as I returned to the car.

Noise is unwanted sound. Music to one person is noise to another. Or music in one situation is noise in another. There is no doubt that the noise in Starbucks is music to those young baristas, and I certainly don’t begrudge them that joy while working alone during these stressful times.

As I reflected on my disturbed emotions, my only concern was actually for myself: how will I live in the post virus world?