I don’t like loud music and fireworks are scary. Loud noises, in fact, make me nervous and chary. So though I find music within a dog’s howl, Loud barking’s a noise that my ears find most foul.
And although I like lullabies, ballads and hums,
I do not like tubas or cymbals or drums. I like noises with dignity. What I am after is whispers and titters, not shouts and loud laughter. So if you’re my friend, this advice must be outed: words with real wisdom don’t need to be shouted.
I can’t take the pressure of frivolous neighbors. Their loud celebrations conflict with my labors. Their barbecue odors disturb my frail nose. They turn up the music when I want to doze.
Convivial people are really a pain. Of my existence, they’re really the bane. I wish I could trade them for sedater folks who had quieter music and told fewer jokes,
for the laughter I hear is pure noise pollution. I wish I could think of a better solution: a wall or a device to filter the sound, but instead I must phone or cry out or pound
on the door that no one inside ever hears. They just do not care, or so it appears. I complain to the neighborhood association that sends them a warning to curb their elation,
but somehow the party just starts up again. More laughter, more music, more odors, more din. If only they knew that there’s no need to fight me. I’d overlook all if they’d only invite me!
Up above me, such a din! I feel my patience growing thin. Cross fingers that they do not fall as workmen scamper over all, balancing on domes and peaks, replacing roof tiles, sealing leaks.
They’re taking the old surface off all my domes and drainage trough, putting membrane down and goo that will not let the water through in June when rains beat hard and steady, although, alas, they’ve come already!
The dogs are sent into a tizzy. Looking up, I just get dizzy. In this world that I love so, down here in lovely Mexico, now the grinder joins the din. In a noise Olympics, it would win!
My thoughts all center on escaping this chipping, drilling, pounding, scraping. How I’d like to leave this all for relative quiet at the mall! But, alas, I must remain a martyr to construction pain.
Ear plugs having no effect, before my sanity is wrecked, I turn up music to a SHOUT to let Bob Dylan drown them out. Now Caitlin Cary croons and sings that she is “Sorry” and other things.
Eliza Gilkyson’s rough croon is over oh too soon, too soon. The silence that her true love speaks replaced now by the sander’s shrieks, I turn the iPod on again, full force, to drown out all the din.
I’ve no sympathy for the neighbors’ plight. Their damn dog kept me up all night, and if my eardrums are to be shot I would rather that it’s not by machines like those above, but rather by a sound I love.
lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 