I observed something about myself the other day.
I was sitting on the subway train. An older gentleman got on and sat across
from me. About a minute into his journey, I looked up at the sound of loud
music. The music sounds were coming from his handheld electronic game device.
This brought up my feelings about audible personal entertainment devices in a
shared space.
Actually, it brought up my general feelings about loud sounds—sounds that
didn’t have to be loud or sounds that had me wishing people were more aware of
how those sounds could be negatively impacting others around them-- in public
or shared spaces. Examples that come to mind: loud music in a subway car, music
from a car’s speakers that can be heard by all the world not in said car, the
neighbor’s party with a DJ on a microphone still going strong well after
midnight, someone in the neighborhood setting off fireworks well after midnight
everyday for about two weeks before a national holiday—the kind of fireworks
that startles me awake, the kind of fireworks I feel in my heart.
I have a sensitivity to loud sounds. I think there’s a bit of nature involved
there, but also some nurture. I was raised in a household where I had to be
aware of how loud I was being. I learned not to slam cupboards. I learned to
walk quietly and, if someone was sleeping nearby, extra quietly.
When the older gentleman got off the train, I went back to the Duolingo lesson
playing on my phone through my earphones 😉
After a few stops, the subway car door opened up and a lady with a baby
stroller and a girl of about 7 or 9 got on. In the stroller sat a little boy
with a pacifier in his mouth.
I went back to my lesson.
Minutes later, I looked up to the sound of the Baby Shark song coming from the
lady’s cellphone, sitting perched on the stroller’s ledge in front of the
little boy. Transfixed, he watched the images that accompanied the video. I
found myself smiling at his concentration.
When a seat opened up across from me, the little girl ran to it while the lady
stopped the video and took back the cellphone. The little boy, quite unhappy
with this, vocalized a wail of disappointment.
Realizing there was only space enough for one, the lady (I think it’s safe to
call her, “Mom” from now on) had the little girl get back up. Then she
maneuvered the stroller in such a way that the girl could sit on her lap with
the stroller parked sideways in front of them. This allowed the mom to perch
the phone back on the stroller’s ledge where all three of them could see the
screen. The next song, an educational piece that included the words, “Thank
you” and “sorry”, woke up the sleeping customer next to them.
This is when I made that observation about myself—the one I mentioned at the
start of this piece 😉
I realized that I found it acceptable that this very little one could watch
something loudly playing on a handheld device, but I wished that the older
gentleman from before had on earphones.
Thinking on it further I realize it’s also the story I’m telling myself about
what I’m experiencing, not just how the experience feels to my system. All loud
sounds aren’t created equally. Some loud sounds can’t be helped. Sounds from a
construction job for example. The sounds of the jackhammer or the power saws
are far from soothing to my system. But it can’t be helped as they’re necessary
to the job being done. As long as the job being done is during the day time.
One summer job at a medieval faire housed me on site with five other people.
Apart from one couple, the rest of us were strangers. The first two nights, one
of my cabin mates insisted on using power tools well into the night. On the
third day, a senior member of the cast moved onto the site. That night, when he
heard that power tool, he went outside and told its owner it was much too late
in the night for all that noise. It never happened again.
So, you see, it’s the loud sounds that can be helped but aren’t, that often have me feeling some kind of way, and often leave me wondering, “Why??”