I've complained for nearly three years about the ongoing road construction by our house. They're now getting close to the end, I think, because they're paving it. That sounds nice, but the noise that has been invading our lives for the past week is finally driving me nuts.The asphalt paving machinery emits a loud, low frequency that makes left ear flutter, and quite painfully.
Maaaaaaaa-whoom-whoom-whoom-whoom...
Maaaaaaaa-whoom-whoom-whoom-whoom...
Maaaaaaaa-whoom-whoom-whoom-whoom...
My left ear has always been ultra-sensitive. Sometimes, someone's voice will trigger the fluttering and I'm forced to stop my ear with my finger.
I'm the first to confess that I'm a nervous person by nature and ongoing noise like this only exacerbates this, making me jumpy and grouchy. I know that all the noise (which begins early in the morning) has to be getting to Micah too, because, like me, he's a sensitive musician and his bedroom window faces the road as well.
The world was a quieter place before the Industrial Revolution. There were none of the household noises we don't even hear anymore, but that are still there eating away at our subconscious: no refrigerators, no heat and AC. There were no cars and trucks going by, no boom-boom car radios, no airplanes, no jets, no sirens. There were street noises, but not those of the mechanical type. It's not the noises of life that get to me, but the steady whirring of machinery. There was no "musak" in stores and cafes, no voices shouting over intercom systems, and no high-pitched squeal from florescent lighting.
I'm currently working on a website for a client who owns a vacation cabin that hangs over the Upper Sacramento River at Mt. Shasta in California. It must be blissfully quiet there, outside of the river.
How I'm wishing I could spend a week there all alone! Just my guitar and my writing tools. Heaven!
