There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so
(Hamlet II.ii)
Beastly
This prehistoric thing sat just below my window, roaring. A steely nautilus, curled up on itself, spewed loud ire. I cringed, curled up, too, on myself, in a defensive position on my couch, against its offense.
“It won’t last forever.” I chanted this and other phrases I’ve discussed with my therapist. “I can leave. I can breathe. I can focus on something else.” All to ward off the anxiety and attendant migraine that had built for nearly two hours.
The beast sensed my exhaustion, my weakening resistance. It tightened its grip on my temples, sank its teeth into my already tense jaw. “Take that,” it growled. “How are those mantras working for you now?”
The landscapers our complex had hired to garden in the warm months and blow snow in the winter had taken this transitional season to clear every vestige of a fallen, once-vibrant leaf from every nook and cranny of the premises. I thanked them silently for taking these tasks from my hands every time they appeared in their various guises: grass cutters, pruners, de-icers. But I found it hard to muster gratitude when they arrived for their cacophonous fall duties.
The troops, strapped like the Ghostbusters team with portable leaf blowers, sussed out every phantom of fall foliage. They coaxed the detritus (which I understand from environment-friendly friends might be better left in situ) just below my large living room window to the feet of this gigantic version of their toy-in-comparison apparati. Once led to its gaping maw, this metal menace then shepherded them en masse, the sheep to slaughter, to a waiting truck that would suck them up and carry their carcasses to some seasonal leaf cemetery. Since trees don’t give their leaves up simultaneously, this scene played out several times during the autumn.
Infrastructure
The trucks chirped like the birds that visit my back deck, each with its own unique song. “How many different back up alert sounds could there be?” I wondered, groggily looking at my phone to find it was 1:21 AM. And why were so many trucks backing up on I95 at this or any hour anyway?
Because the CT DOT had decided to replace the bridge just at Exit 17 before it crumbled into pieces of concrete Gorgonzola cheese. Necessary, certainly. And certain to be the bane of my and my neighbors' existences until they complete the project in one-to-two years. The construction noises: jackhammers, backhoes, dump trucks - start early and go on into the very wee morning hours. My bedroom faces the fiasco, and so my head fills with the sounds. I search for similes: an airplane taking off and landing in my brain. A water main bursting and gushing in my head. A smoke alarm firing along my axons. I generally sleep well and heavily, even with the distant hum of highway traffic. That steady stream is more like a lullaby than an intrusion. This is something completely different.
Sounds Like…
I am noise sensitive and averse in general; I imagine I suffer from some form of misophonia as well, as sounds like bovine chewing, excessive throat clearing, or repetitive tapping can set my nerves a-jangle. These and other noises are often the fingernails to my chalkboard, and no matter how I try to acknowledge their utility, certain of them make me cringe in reflexive misery. To my incredulous shock and dismay, I simply cannot control every noise all the time everywhere. I have to learn some combination of coping techniques and acceptance in general, but in particular if I’m to have any hope of a peaceful night’s rest in the next 12 to 24 months.
Relativity
One of my son’s best high school friend’s mother died the day before Thanksgiving. Although we were not close, it hit me quite hard. She was a peer, age-wise, and we are too young to die. And she was one of the quartet of moms whose boys shared an unusually strong bond throughout high school. One of the four of us has already been lost: early onset Alzheimer’s has “taken” her, too. I hugged her boys as if they were mine at the shiva call; I could not imagine the emotional roller coaster they had ahead of them.
I thought of her later that night as I applied moisturizer in a feeble, illusory attempt to stave off the gravitational pull of time, and steeled myself for a night of road construction rage. She, I thought, is not applying beauty cream tonight, nor will she on any night, as a tear rolled down my cheek. This seemingly insignificant, quotidian fact weighed so heavily on me. No sound, I thought, will bother her anymore. It is quiet where she is.
.