Silence

I’ve been in a quest for quiet these days. This has become especially important now that there’s some major construction in front of my house. I have the impression that they’ve rented some expensive machines and want to get long, full days out them, worth the overtime for the employees. They start at 7:30am and go until 6:30pm.

This is just the business next to my place who are building a garage, but they need to reinforce the slope down below the new building and have brought around 40 granite boulders to place. So it’s breaking stone noises and digging noises and lots of yelling over the sound of the machines noises.

There’s even more construction further down, but I’m more supportive of that one. It was a nursing home that went belly up (the owner was embezzling money) and I think it’s great to reuse the old building. I’m happy to have new neighbors, but the construction there is loud, too, and they’re taking forever.

So when the garage building machines and the renovation machines finally wind down for the day, my neighbor starts his evening mass, projected (I’m guessing) from Burundi in full song and dance. When it’s just his television with the mass, it’s okay (he’s not loud, really, but I can hear everything) but sometimes his friends come by to pray and sing on the balcony. I think I would be less annoyed if it wasn’t religious, maybe? That’s on me, I guess, my own prejudices. I’m tolerant of religion as long as I can still make a phone call in my apartment without closing all the windows.

Years ago in a different city, I had a neighbor’s son who began playing piano, and after about six months we were getting pretty nice little concerts (I think the boy was super talented). My neighbor has a nice voice, I guess, so I don’t know why it bothers me so much. It’s certainly the religious aspect, but I think his religion holds him together. I’m trying to be tolerant.

So I’ve been in search of quiet, and this is what’s ironic; this is the quietest part of the year in my village. The outdoors camps for kids that depend on good weather have wound down (we might have good weather at this time of year, but camps are usually booked a year or so in advance, and no one would tempt October or November) the snow has yet to arrive (if it even does this year). The bugs are on the wane so the birds that eat them are thinking about heading south. It is objectively quiet everywhere else in the village except in front of my house.

Last year, mostly because of my neighbor, I bought some noise cancelling headphones. I put “music for concentration” on to block everything out. I bounce between classical guitar and, like, inoffensive classic music (Bach, Handel, the sort that was meant to be background music for royal dinners and whatever), and I try to get out and go for walks where the quiet is everywhere.

There is the silent hum of autumn, the rustle of drying leaves, the soft crackle of dried grass in the breeze, crickets rubbing their legs together. It would all be so beautiful if I could just get the others to stop making so much noise all day long!