Monday, August 23, 2010

Things That Go Bump in the Night

There are people who say sound is a strong trigger for memory. A song from a special summer or that you heard often while dating someone can often put you right back in that place and time. In my case I have a sound of cicadas. When I grew up in New Jersey I would wake up in the summer to sound of the cicadas. I distinctly remember opening my eyes and hearing their sound crescendo up and down. My windows would be open and it would be sunny and the wind would be blowing in the curtains. It is not a sound I thought of until moving here to Tennessee. I guess I did not hear that particular noise much in Delaware, but here I hear it often.

I began to think about other noises which are different here. In Delaware I would always wake up (or if I was stressed be awake) to hear the newspaper guy drive buy and "thwap!" the paper onto the driveway at 4 AM. During the school year a school bus would roll up and sit at 6:50 AM every school on the corner by my house. I knew when I heard it I REALLY had to get my act together. I could hear the trash trucks go by at around 6:00AM every Monday and Thursday. There was bird in the bushes under our bedroom window that chirped around 5AM. When I was outside you could always hear a plane getting ready to land at the Philadelphia airport.(actually after awhile you stopped hearing them because they became background noise) Sometimes when I would take my eldest daughter for a ride in her stroller around the neighborhood when she was a baby I would count how many planes I heard go by overhead.

At night my house was mostly quiet. Sometimes I could hear the "humming and thrumming" of our computer. (poor thing is getting old) The sound of the garage door going up when Jack came home from being out or working late. Nighttime held some of the bad noises too, the beep of the battery back up sump pump, the beep of the smoke detector needing a new battery, or the beep of the "I detected water on the floor in basement device" because the stupid heater pump had issues AGAIN. I would not say the noises at night in Delaware scared me much. Of course I was always happier when Jack was around to hear them with me.

The sounds of Tennessee at night are still a little scary. In the summer there are often thunderstorms at night. I do not like thunderstorms. During the day they are fine but at night they startle and disturb me. I have residual stress from worrying about losing power and the basement flooding. Here in Tennessee if there is a storm at night I make the dog comes close and I curse the big windows I now have that show me every flash of lightning. I have not heard to many thumps or bumps here. Thankfully my room is to far from the computer to hear it's hum. I hear the air conditioner thump on and blow. There is only one odd unidentified noise. It is the soft "tink" which we cannot place, we think it may be from wind blowing a vent somewhere. Jack and I have been happy and puzzled at the quietness of this house. I continue to look forward to learning all the noises bumpy, frumpy or silly this house as to offer. And at some point I know I will be trying to fall asleep somewhere new and miss that soft "tink".

1 comment:

  1. I think every house has its sounds. Thankfully, time & repetition always help you to get used to them. As long as there is no wild screaming or gunshot noises, you're ok!

    ReplyDelete