The Sounds of Silence

       From Loretta:
      
      I carry ear plugs with me most everywhere I go.
      A while back, my husband needed some oral surgery.  We walked into the waiting area and one of those satellite radio stations was blasting the current version of Musak through the room.  It was really LOUD.  I go to a medical office for some high tech test and there’s a television on.  LOUD.  Why are there televisions in medical areas?  Haven’t any of the doctors read about how noise increases stress levels?
      Am I the only one who thinks the world needs more quiet?  Am I the only one who longs for the days when all one heard in a waiting room was the rustling of pages as people thumbed through well-thumbed magazines from the previous year, 118 BC?
       The day of the oral surgery, I brought a book, knowing I’d be there for some time, waiting.  What do other people do?  Listen to the really bad music coming over a mediocre sound system?  I mean, not everyone likes the same music.  So who is it being played for?  And why is it so LOUD?  How do they expect people to read even magazines that require no brain processing whatsoever when there’s some awful radio station blaring in their ears?  If I had not had my ear plugs with me, I would have driven home and got them.  But they were there, in my pocketbook the size of Chicago, and I stuck them in my ears, and though I could still hear the so-called music, my skull had stopped vibrating.
      Color me puzzled.  These are medical facilities.  Why would they think that people in pain or in some degree of anxiety about a test (we are most of us anxious when a test impends, even if we’re sure we can ace it) or awaiting a loved one undergoing a procedure, minor or major, want to hear LOUD music or LOUD TV programs?  Is the noise supposed to drown out the anxieties, deaden the pain, distract us?  Because, if that is the case, it’s not working for me.  It’s driving me INSANE.
      Or do they simply assume that the majority of the population blew out its eardrums in adolescence and therefore cannot hear anything lower in volume than Spinal Tap 11?
      I was pondering these and other questions last week, when the power went out.
      Which is why you didn’t hear from me at all and Mary Jo had to put up that little forlorn figure.
      I was doing--not by choice--some time travel.  Back to the days when there was no electricity.  When you notice things, like how dark it gets at 3pm on an overcast day and how really dark it can be by 4pm when it starts snowing.  And how cold the house can get because the heating system, though running on oil, is controlled by an electric thermostat.  Even the gas stove has electric fire starter thingies--though it’s possible, fortunately, to start it the old fashioned way, with a match.  Then you think about how great matches are, and how much trickier it used to be to start fire.  I could blog about early 19th century lighting, but that’s maybe for another day.  Today is about sound or the lack thereof.
      The thing I noticed most about no electricity was the quiet.
      My house is usually fairly quiet because I don’t turn on the television or radio or any audio/visual gear during my workday.
      But that’s a different quiet.
      The thing I noticed, when the power went out, was the lack of humming, that endless hum that’s part of our days because it’s the hum of electrical power, of our computers and clocks and televisions, quiet but alive, humming.
      You don’t notice it until it’s gone.
      And I wondered, since lots of other people do keep their TVs on or radios or listen to music, whether they don’t really hear that aggravating sound that to me equals Noise because to them it’s become like the background hum of electricity.  This made me think of 19th century visitors to Venice, people from London, who couldn’t sleep because Venice was too quiet:  no carriages and carts and horses rattling over the pavement day and night.
      I loved the silence.  The lack of hum was very soothing to my nerves.  If only I could have had some light & my computer.
      There it is, the price one pays.
       Reading by candlelight--or, in my case, battery-powered book light, because lighting candles in my paper-strewn office is an act of suicide--is much harder than reading by bright electric light, especially when you are going back and forth between books and maps, as I was doing, in my research.  I tried to work on my MIP--I used to write my stories in longhand, after all--but I am so in the habit now of working at the computer that I’d have to retrain my brain, and that, as I learned when I made the switch to computer years ago, takes weeks, not minutes. 
      Plus, it was cold day, and the house grew colder as they day wore on, and as it wore on, it grew darker, as days will do.  And the frustration of being stymied in all my daily tasks made it hard to get anything accomplished.  To up the frustration factor, the electric company kept changing the estimated time of power restoration.  We began in the morning with an optimistic prediction of 10am that soon deteriorated to 6pm, then skulked to 7pm, then--at 7:05pm--slunk to 8pm, at which point homicidal thoughts entered my brain.
      When the power came back on at about 7:10pm, happiness washed through me, all warm and bright, like...electricity.
      And yet, for all the miseries of that day, I still recall with pleasure the silence.  And today, and probably for a while to come, I’m conscious of the hum about me, a hum my characters would surely notice and wonder at, and probably find exceedingly annoying, if not spooky.
      And what of you?  I know you’re readers or you wouldn’t be reading this blog.  Being a reader, do you prize quiet?  Or does it not matter?  Can you tune out the loud of our lives?  Does quiet please you or trouble you?  How many people use ear plugs?  Please raise your hands.

Comments

[piper]

No, no earplugs except to block out my husband's snoring. I do have the ability to totally block out sound when I am immersed in a book or even in my imagination. It is a very frustrating aspect of my character that drives my husband crazy. He insists he tells me things that I have no recollection of. Selective hearing a trait I learned from my parents

[Gretchen F]

I supervise three lunch periods at school each day- the shrill volume of up to 150 children at a time is difficult to imagine- you gotta be there. One of our traditional lenten observances has been to hold a "silent lunch day" sometime during Lent.Boy, do I look forward to that day! And I'm sure you will not be surprised to hear that I almost never turn on the TV or radio after work- I much prefer the silence! That said, I have learned to tune out noise and get on with whatever I need to do, especially when reading.I think you have no choice if you work around childeren.

[Gretchen F]

P.S. Welcome back to the 21st century, Loretta. We missed you!

[Kalen Hughes]

I love it when it's quiet. Just me and dog curled up on the couch.

My oldest girlfriend lives "off the grid" at the top of a mountain just outside of Nevada City, California. I LOVE going to visit her and her family. It's so quiet, and there's wildlife everywhere (even if that does mean you carry pepper spray to the bath house at night in case you meet a mountain lion).

I just wish my car would make it up there during the winter when there's snow.

[Nina P]

Ah, Kalen... take me with you!

For all that I would miss if I was ported back to the 19c, I'd never miss the constant hum of electricity. When the power goes off at our house, it's like someone has removed heavy shackles form my psyche. The computers stop running. The fans stop humming. The satellite equipment falls asleep. The frig goes silent. Raw freedom!

If the outage happens at night, (even if I’m in bed) I run outside and look up at the sky. Do you know what I see? Stars!!, glittering against a perfectly night-black sky. Not the glow of surrounding towns. A truly black sky. That is what I would enjoy the most about the 19c.

As for TV, radio and Musak – if it disappeared, I would wish it a grand good-bye.

Nina, mentally packing her bags and wishing for a one way ticket to back.

[piper]

Hmm, now that I think of it, I don't generally turn on the stereo, and the tv isn't usually on except for evenings when my husband is home (or if I'm making supper). Quiet? Sometimes I wake up wondering what the humming is, and it is the fridge downstairs.

[shscott21]

Oh, Loretta, I am SO with you!!

I hate being bombarded by tv's and music everywhere you go, and at such a high volume, too. And I agree that odds are the anxiety levels are already high enough in airport lounges without us all being force-fed CNN. It's part of the reason I almost never go to the movies--the sound's so loud I feel like I've been assaulted, not entertained.

Yeah, I'm a crank. *g*

But OTOH, I don't like earplugs, either, or air-conditioning. I like to hear real sounds, like kids outside, or birds, or the wind through the trees. I like to be part of my enviornment, for better or worse, not sealed away from it.

[Kalen Hughes]

Earplugs make my ears hurt. Am I the only one? I do use them on planes and such, but I'm not sure it's worth it.

[LorettaChase]

Piper and Gretchen, the ability to filter is very interesting. I was better at it when I was much younger. These days it's hard for me to carry on a conversation, in a car, say, if the radio is on. Or at a party where other conversations are going on nearby. I know in some cases the problem is my nosiness. I'm trying to hear everything. Kalen & Nina, while I'd never be happy off the grid, it is very nice, once in a while, to get away from the humming and to look up into the night sky and see the stars. Susan/Miranda--it was your comment about movies that got me on this rant. I don't mind the real sounds, either--no trouble writing if kids are outside, yelling, or if the birds are having one of their tweety marathons. But a TV or radio will stop me dead. And yes, Kalen, earplugs are not that comfortable. After years of searching, I've found the AOSafety ones the least uncomfortable, but only one drugstore near me sells them, so I buy in quantity.

[Patricia Rice]

it's so good to hear I'm not the only neurotic out there. I detest the blaring TVs (inevitably playing Fox news or soap operas, no less), but the other day my husband thought I was having a hysterical fit because not only were they playing loud Muzak in the grocery store, but every corner of our ultra modern store had in-store TVs with women chattering recipes. I've noticed lately that I'm not just being bombarded by bad music, but they're not satisfied until they have music AND talking televisions. ARGGGHHHHHHHH!!!!

I'm one who grew up in enough countryside that I could hear garbage trucks a mile away. We try to live far away from city noise when we move because the traffic sound is so distressing. But if this double whammy of TV and radio is the shape of things to come, I'm heading for a cave.

[Kalen Hughes]

"I've noticed lately that I'm not just being bombarded by bad music, but they're not satisfied until they have music AND talking televisions. ARGGGHHHHHHHH!!!!"

And that's why I love safeway.com, LOL!

[Elaine McCarthy]

I've often thought that the masses who can't seem to exist without some kind of media blare in the background must be aliens. I've got to have silence, lots and lots of silence. However, I read recently that baroque music can improve cognitive functioning (or some impressive-sounding thing like that), and I do find that a nice murmur of Mozart in the background is very soothing as I go about my day job of organizing humongous stacks of medical records. The only trouble is that I tend to sing along!

I wouldn't mind the TV in the doctor's office so much if only they were tuned in to PBS, but of course it's always soap operas. Gives one a somewhat discouraging picture of just exactly how low the common denominator is. OK, I'm an entertainment snob; shoot me.

[Kalen Hughes]

These are the best earplugs I've ever found. I like them because they seal off the ear cannal rather than plug it (which I find hurts after a few hours).

"Made from the natural ingredients of purified beeswax, highest density sterile cotton and purified lanolin, this perfect blend has produced a magnificent ear plug [for all ages] that is especially comfortable to wear all day or night, while blocking-out FAR MORE SOUND then other ear plugs"

http://www.earplugsonline.com/index.html

[Lois]

I'm a bit mixed up. . . at home, I'll mute the tv to read, but I have to leave the news on for the words just in or breaking news. LOL When I was going to school and took the public bus, I could read because somehow I could block the noise. And I prefered the library vastly over the cafeteria, unless I was eatting off course.

However, at night to sleep, I can't do the quiet anymore, so I have my fan on. If it's summer and hot, it's point at me, but the rest of the year, it's pointed away from me because obviously it's too cold for it. LOL :)

Lois

[Nina P]

Ok, with all these comments, I'm beginning to wonder if creative genius and the distaste for un-natural noise go hand in hand. The best writing I've ever done was at a hunting cabin tucked way up north where the only two electronic appliances were my laptop and a small frig. I had electric lights but didn't use them. I used candles. And, ya know, I've never written that prolifically again. I thought it was because I was near a flowing stream (ion charged water and all) But maybe not. Anyone else out there ever experience this?

[Susan Wilbanks]

"Earplugs make my ears hurt. Am I the only one? I do use them on planes and such, but I'm not sure it's worth it."

Earplugs make my ears hurt, AND, if I wear them long enough, seem to trigger my mild TMJ--headaches, a stiff jaw, no fun.

I feel like the odd one out here, but background noise doesn't bother me, and in fact I have a hard time sleeping when it's totally silent. We have an air purifier in our bedroom, so I'm used to that steady low hum of white noise. But what's worse for my sleep than total silence is silence punctuated by noise. I've had terrible nights in mostly-quiet hotels, because I wake up with every beep of the elevator, everyone in a neighboring room coming in late or getting up early, etc. When I can afford to, I avoid roommates at conferences and such, because it tends to limit my ability to run the AC all night or even leave the TV on and tuned to CSPAN just to create enough white noise to get me through the night!

[RevMelinda]

One of the noisiest places I ever lived was "out in the country" (Sewanee, Tennessee)--the frogs and cicadas made an unbelievably loud, clamoring roar and the sound would hit you like a truck when you stepped outside. I remember when I first arrived there I had a hard time sleeping through it.

[LorettaChase]

Pat, all my siblings and siblings-in-law think I'm completely neurotic about the TVs and the music speakers everywhere. I too wonder why the TVs (and yes, we've got them in some grocery stores here, too) are always tuned to Fox TV or soaps. And what I find particularly ironic is the TVs in medical environments tuned to "General Hospital" of all things. Is that supposed to be ironic? Elaine, PBS would definitely be more tolerable. LOL, RevMelinda. I, too, found the sound of frogs & cicadas, way out in the country, deafening. Which just goes to show that some of us are city girls at heart--but we want a _quiet_ city.

[Laura Resnick]

Hi Loretta!
We lost power here, too, about 2 weeks ago. Luckily, this apartment has a fireplace, so I was able to cook dinner over the fire (shades of my days on the road in Africa!) and keep the main room warm until power was restored the following day.

Reading by candlelight bothers my eyes, so I used the time, after household chores were done, to listen to an audio book on my iPod. Similar, let's say, to being Read To in the evenings in the good old days, and very relaxing. :)

And, hey, I'm glad to hear I'm not the only person who takes earplugs everywhere I go! I have spent the past 10 years, as an apartment dweller, constantly asking my neighbors to turn down their TVs and stereos; so I often wear earplugs at home, to work or to sleep. As a grad student in 2003/04, I discovered I could NEVER study or research in the library without earplugs because I was always surrounded by people chatting or talking on their cell phones!

In waiting rooms, I frequently turn down the TV without asking, or I ask the receptionist to turn down the musak. In airport lounges, I frequently use earplugs to block out the clamour of SEVERAL televisions blaring at once, and then I just keep an eye on my gangway door to see when the rest of the herd enters it.

I'm a big fan of my iPod, though. In grocery stores, public transport, the gym, and many other places where the noise is unpleasant or very boring, I always have good music, good books, and good radio programs to listen to.

LauraR

[Kalen Hughes]

Another iPod addict here. At least it blocks out what everyone else is listening to. LOL! I've got all my RWA conference workshops loaded on it, and I just fire it up and soak it in. I was just listening to Jo's workshop about names yesterday.

[Sherrie Holmes]

From Sherrie:
Noise is a serious issue with me. I can deal with some types of noise, and can't abide others. Incessantly barking dogs drive me up the wall, and I'm currently having battles with a mornonic neighbor whose dogs come onto my property and bark at me.

Traffic noise bothers me, because I live on a rural farm, and 30 years ago you'd only hear 1-2 cars an hour drive by. Now the traffic is constant, and I hate it.

I gave away my TV 25 years ago, and now I have one I inherited recently when Mom died, but I never turn it on. I love music, so the stereo is on the moment I get up, but aside from NPR, I seldom listen to the radio because I HATE screechy commercials. When I write, I listen to my classical CDs or my rainstorm CD.

Once I fall asleep, I'm dead. However, one summer I was driven nuts by some idiot who ran his semi for hours and hours. At least it sounded like the far off drone of an idling semi. I'd get out of bed and stand at the open slider listening and listening, trying to figure out where the sound was coming from. I became obsessed with it. Then I discovered it wasn't a car at all. It was humming in my ears. (sheepish grin)

I keep a water fountain on my desk and I like the sound of the water trickling over the rocks. I also adore the sound of a ticking clock, and bought an old-fashioned wind-up alarm clock that ticks really loudly. I also have one of those 1-hour kitchen timers that I use when doing client work, and it ticks even louder than my Baby Ben wind-up clock. I find the sound of a ticking clock immensely soothing.

[maryjoputney]

An old boyfriend of mine used to say "Few things improve on silence." You can see why I liked him. :) I hadn't thought about it much, but even though my house is fairly quiet, there is a constant hum of computer, refrigerator, HVAC noises.

Very spooky when the power goes out (which luckily it doesn't very often, or for very long.)

I think that the TVs in doctors' offices, airline waiting areas, etc., are for those people raised on electronic entertainment who have no attention span whatsover unless images are flickering in front of them. So the rest of us suffer. If I have a really good book, I can tune out a lot, but I still prefer silence.

A new Lexus showroom was built near me soon, and I take my car there for service not only because the service is superb, but they have MULTIPLE waiting rooms, one of which is designated for total silence. It's worth paying extra for the service!

Mary Jo

[John Stevens]

Earplugs have, unfortunately, been a part of daily life for me for a year and a half now. You see I live in a bottom floor apartment and above me is a single mother and her teenaged son... who plays the guitar. Actually I should have said - who is trying to play the guitar. For some reason that I cannot fathom he likes to play at 10 or 11 pm and I, who have to get up for work at 5 am, hear every strum of those strings, and quite clearly I might add.

Actually it's a lot better than it was at my last place where the 3-year-old was constantly running and jumping and playing with his ball indoors. And his parents were almost as bad - they started off by moving a huge entertainment center in at midnight. It was, to say the least, not entertaining. So as you can see, Loretta, I'm well acquainted with your dear earplugs. Far more so than I ever wished to be.

Because, like many of you, I also prize the quiet. It is rare indeed for me to turn some noise-making device on simply for the sake of the noise it will make. In this I am quite unlike my parents, both of whom often have the TV (Mom) or the radio (Dad) on just for the background noise. The only time I turn the TV on and just leave it, is in the mornings so I can catch the news and weather while I'm getting ready for work.

Hearing human voices is fine, if the humans are actually there and speaking to you. But to just be there for the sake of being there? Sorry, but as far as I'm concerned Silence is Golden.

[Tessa Dare]

Hi! I am finally delurking as a wenchling.

I'm rather an introvert, and I've always preferred quiet. Then I lived for a time in a developing country, where blackouts were frequent and of varying duration. Seconds, minutes, days. One never knew.

And yes - when they occurred at night, there was this sudden, smothering silence. And I mean smothering quite literally, because the electric fan would go off, and the tropical heat was stifling, even in the middle of the night. But even then, it was never truly quiet for long. The roosters in the yard would crow (Before I moved there, I thought a rooster woke up with the dawn, fluttered up to the fencepost and crowed exactly once. Hah.), the pigs would be snuffling around, the drunk guys down on the corner would pull out a guitar to replace their karaoke machine. The population density of both people and animals ensured that it was never truly silent.

When I came back to the U.S., the relative quiet and isolation of our individual homes seemed rather creepy. So did huge portions at restaurants. But it didn't take long before I re-learned to enjoy both. :)

[Francois]

I love quiet. I work at a radio/tv broadcaster so there is noise everywhere - so I avoid the TV at home.

Has anyone tried TV-B-Gone? I just love the idea of being able to turn off those annoying communal TV sets, but wouldn't quite dare to do it! http://www.tv-b-gone.com/

[Kathy Kremer]

I like quiet, especially when I'm sitting in church before a service. It helps to center and focus on the reasons I'm there.

We also enjoy the quiet at our house in the mountains of Colorado. It's a vacation just to be away from the phone. It takes about 3-4 days of quiet before we can settle down enough to really relax.

I've had to use earplugs for the last several months because my husband is a loud snorer and I was getting a little loony (more loony?) from lack of sleep. The ones I use came from a drug company. They are soft and comfortable. The hardest part is getting them seated inside the ear canal.

At our office we do have a television in the waiting room, but it is playing educational spots about various health issues. Gee, I'd hate to think that anyone believed General Hospital or Grey's Anatomy had anything much to do with medical practice. We also have tvs in the exam rooms. There are several subjects that the patient can choose to watch (related to various ailments like diabetes or high cholesterol) or the room can be silent if he/she would rather read while waiting.

[Diane N]

I'm delurking to comment--making a little noise of my own!I usually love Friday mornings at work because I'm often the only person on the ground floor of my library. I seem to get more done when I'm alone as I am today because it always seems so delightfully quiet. Reading this excellent post made me perk my ears up, so to speak, and here's what I've heard: my computer is LOUD, capital letters loud. I can hear the air handler as it rumbles to life every ten minutes or so. I can hear every last thump and bump from upstairs, and there are many of them. What can they possibly be doing up there? I can't hear traffic on the street, but when the UPS man drives into our driveway as he just did, it sounds like he's revving up to ram the building! The elevator never struck me as having a particularly loud noise, but it does. There's this incredible clunk-thunk-boom sound when it starts up. And it beeps loudly every time the door opens until it closes again. And apparently the elevator shaft magnifies the sound.

I truly thought it was a quiet day until I stopped to listen. I'm obviously blocking out noises that might drive someone else batty. And that makes me wonder, is is the unfamiliar sounds that bother us most, the ones we don't hear on a regular basis? I think it probably has to be, or else no one would ever build a house next to the railroad tracks...

[LorettaChase]

I KNEW that many kindred spirits visited this blog. Now you've got me thinking maybe I need an IPod--and maybe it's time to get the fireplace functional again. Laura reminded me of the early days in this house, when I worked in the living room, and because it was the coldest room in the house, often indulged in a fire. And why didn't it dawn on me to ask the receptionist to turn down the sound? Today, we're having some sleety rain, and it's drumming on my window air conditioner, but that sound is soothing.

[Melissa]

I wear earplugs at night to sleep, thanks to years of noisy neighbors. They're gone, but the habit remains.

I also dislike mall noise. I tend to shop more quickly than I used to, because I get tired of hearing 5 different radios in 5 different departments in a store like Dillard's, all fighting with each other for dominance. Or the muzak plus three TV's running nonstop infomercials in AC Moore. Loud TV's running trashy talk shows at the doctor's office bug me, and thanks to your suggestions I think I'll start taking my earplugs when I go and at least mitigate that junk.

[Barbara Elness]

I like quiet, I live alone and my house is usually quiet, unless I choose to put on some music or the television. I have always had the ability to get so involved in a story that I can just go into a zone where noise around me fades away, unless it is very loud or annoying, and then occasionally it isn't possible to ignore it. I too have resorted to ear plugs to sleep in the past due to noisy neighbors, but thankfully live in a nice quite neighborhood now. Ear plugs are a good option to keep your sanity, that's for sure.