Saturday, March 30, 2013

Noisy

I've discovered something pretty darn wild.

Back when I lived in the woods, early on, I spent so much time paying attention to the sounds of the wild.  I remember soon after I moved in there, I almost called 911 after hearing what I thought was a woman being assaulted deep in the woods.  Once I paid attention, I realized it wasn't human at all and it and was moving at such a fast rate along the creek that it had to be some sort of mating call/ritual.  I'm thinking bobcat/fox.  I never did figure it out exactly.

The funny thing is, I didn't realize how much I really did not hear actual human voices there until I moved back in to town.  When I lived in the woods, I heard birds in unison. In town, I hear them one by one.  (Which helps me when I lie in bed on weekend mornings, identifying them by their unique voices.)  Same goes for squirrels.  I'm not quite at the point of naming the critters but when I do, they will have names like "Yappy", "Squeaky" and "Get off my porch ".

I told you about the bat in my house right?  I can't remember...but in 11 years in the woods, I never had a bat in the house.  In the city?  Yup.  That was a wild night.

So, back to voices.  I think the hardest part about moving back in to the city was getting used to the voices of people.  Just the ordinary conversations.  People walking by, talking.  The mrrmmmrrrmmmrr through the walls of the row houses.  The laughter, the screaming, the day-to-day unrelenting chatter.  And I thought I was going to lose my mind, just a little bit.

When Emily was living with me, she named the neighbors (Smoking Guy, Lady with 7 kids from 4 different fathers, Naked guy with open curtains, Grandma on the porch all day...) and I was fascinated by her insight because I was trying to tune them all out.  They were all Noisy Neighbors and I heard them all in unison.  Now I am learning to hear them one by one.

But something else...I've also learned to not hear them.  Today, my neighbor was out screaming his head off at another neighbor and I think it had been going on for about 5 minutes before the message got to my brain that there was a commotion and maybe I should pay attention.  It was sort of entertaining in a way.

A week ago I texted my daughter that she moved out and is missing all the excitement up here on the North end of town.  Firetrucks, ambulances, police cars, and she said "go out and see what is going on" and I was all "eh, I'm taking a shower but I hear some guy out there screaming about how much it hurts"  and she was all "Go investigate!" and I said, "nah, I'm naked and getting in the shower"  and then she said "perfect, you can cause another accident!"

She has my sense of humor...

(As it turns out, some 20 year old woman got in a fight with her baby daddy and when he got out of the car, she sped up, jumped the curb and hit him with her car then sped off.)

I didn't think I could get used to all the human voices when I first moved in here.  Turns out I can...and then some.

(His injuries don't appear to be life-threatening.)

2 comments:

  1. Yesterday morning I was out early filling up the bird feeder and feeding the ferals and I heard loud voices. It was a little freaky until I realized it was kids out on the road. I don't know why they were up so early, but voices out in the boonies is weird. We also pay attention to sirens because they are something of a novelty.

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  2. I live right by the hospital and a fire station. I hardly ever notice sirens. When I lived in the woods, I rarely noticed the trains that went by along the creek. But a siren was a novelty. It's weird what we get used to.

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