Noise & Night Songs: Some Call This Neurodivergent. I Call It Normal.

Nature, humanity, violence

I write often of my love for silence. Less often, I write of its opposite.

Of agitation edging towards rage with each man-meets-machine click and hum.

Of desperation building to panic with every lawnmower, leaf blower, and saw.

I hide in the woods now. Before, living downtown, there were sirens. So many sirens.

I’d pause my meal each time.

Setting down fork and spoon.

Willing it to pass.

Willing the sirens and all the unseeing, unhearing people to stop.

Just stop.

Yes, that’s a judgement.

No, they didn’t stop.

Thursdays and Saturdays were worst.

Drinking. Laughter. Loudness.

Maleness. Shouting. Sirens.

Sirens.

Always sirens.

Always a predictable arc.

So, I’d pause again.

Spoon down. Soup past cold.

I’d wait.

I’d practice.

Sirens are rare now, here on the opposite coast.

Surrounded by trees not far from the sea, things are…far better.

And yet, in this new home, I’ve agreed to live with another. With a partner whose sensitivities and sensibilities are not…my own.

We’re doing our best.

He’s doing his best.

I’m…getting there.

Slowly.

Although we share the main house, there’s a rustic cabin out back where I spend my time and take my meals.

It’s perfect.

Mostly.

Cars still pass on the main road and I still hear them.

This is fine.

For now.

When snows come, more silence will too.

Yes, and. When I retire from my cabin in the evening…making my way through darkness and trees to the main house…

Brightness.

Loudness.

Walking through the back door into an onslaught of tv streaming on a desktop centred on the dining-room-meets-living-room table, I am filled with…

Rage.

It’s irrational.

It’s primal.

Crashing into fast images and jagged sound, I recoil.

A tumult of blue light and too much loud overtakes…

Everything.

All a violence.

All entirely too much.

So, I retreat. I head to my room and shut the door.

I train my senses on the open window above my bed.

I swallow the nighttime songs of crickets and owls.

I wait.

I practice.

Shhh.

Hush now.

He’s just being normal.

They’re all just…being normal.

Thank you for reading. I’m a doctor of Chinese Medicine and write about sobriety and soulful living. Find all my links here: