Last month I promised (threatened) to write about all the things that annoy me about living in the suburbs. But I have decided to reduce it to one overriding complaint--NOISE. I have a low tolerance for noise. As a result of the pressures in my head from coughing throughout my babyhood, I lost an eardrum in my right ear. Hearing in my left ear will not win a prize, either, but I do not seem or feel impaired. I put it down to the concept that you can't miss what you never had. Doctors have offered me hearing aids promising great results, but I am loathe to follow through. I have always lived in a quiet world and I really like it here.
Enter the suburbs. I have never been more bothered by noise than I am living here. Perhaps it is the constantly shattered expectation of quiet that makes this worse by far than the city, but it is undeniably worse. Right now for example, I'm am sitting in a lovely spot of my own creation. My little backyard has a pretty redwood deck festooned with flowers and plants--all my favorite varieties, comfy outdoor furniture and my bird feeders. My freshly bathed dogs are by my side and I can look beyond my computer screen to a lovely little, newly mulched garden beyond. The only sound is the faint tinkling of a delicate glass wind chime, bird chatter and a dog barking in the distance. It's all the paradise I need. And yet, it is frequently off limits to me on account of NOISE. Any minute, and I can never know when, a landscaper's truck might pull up and in the blink of an eye it's paradise lost. There seem to be no limits as to when someone can make noise, how loud it can get and how long it can last. Landscapers arrive across the street as early as 7:30 AM ready to assault nature and my quietude with full mowers, blowers, whackers and trimmers ablaze. Sit out on a Sunday morning and there's no stopping a neighbor from marching out to the garage and firing up every noisy device therein. Today as I filled my coffee cup intending to drink it al fresco, an enormous truck parked outside the house and idled for about 40 minutes as it made a delivery of God knows what using a forklift. I am sure whatever was deposited in my neighbor's driveway is going to result in even more noise as it is built, installed or applied. Yesterday it was a different neighbor with a power-washer that drove me indoors. It never ends.
And it's not just me being overly sensitive. It's become a running joke among the Mayor, the boy and me. No sooner do we get comfortable outside than boom, we encounter some form of decibel challenge. I would have thought that my reduced hearing would make this all the more bearable for me, but it doesn't. All the hearing loss has done is make me appreciate a quiet world that increasingly does not exist. Shopping at the mall the other day for the boy amid the insistent, obnoxious music at Hollister and Aeropostale had me running home for the xanax. We recently spend a beautiful day at Great Adventure where my only problem all day was that there was no place to come in from the loud voices and piped music.
In my mind, the greatest hero of the present day is going to be the person who invents the silent motor that powers all the lawn taming, hedge trimming, debris clearing devices we use to beat our environments into submission. In fact, I think that same individual ought to be considered for the Nobel PEACE prize.
