Thursday, November 1, 2012

Please Stay ff

or In Which We Think About Noise

The thing with living in an urban in-fill neighborhood, is that it keeps on getting filled in.  More or less across the street from me, in an area formerly graced by asters and weeds, a couple of new houses are being built.  The process hasn't been quiet, but at least the parts involving heavy machinery seem to be over with.  Now the walls are being raised, and the sounds of hammers, and cheerful voices shouting, "No, don't put that there!  Over there!", and music blaring over tinny speakers rule the daylight hours. 

I've been taking some more vacation time, a day here and there, so I'm more aware of work-day sounds than I normally would be.  When the cement-mixers arrived and ground loudly away I hid inside, but now they're gone.  In the mornings I've been planting bulbs, a few at a time, and enjoying the feel of autumn sunshine across my back, and the house-finches' fussing.  While I'm working in the garden I like hearing the sounds of construction close by.  The tinny music is either sentimental '80's stuff—Kenny Rogers, Bob Seger—or sentimental New Mexican/Mexican stuff, melodic and cheerful.  It's good gardening music, and the workers' voices calling to each other, ribbing each other, across the street, have a camaraderie I enjoy from what we might as well call afar.  Finches, music, other people, sunshine, your own work—they all make you feel like part of the same grand project somehow.

Once you're ready to rest, though, sounds change.  What used to be a kind of company turns into an intrusion.  You become aware of volume rather than content.  And so you seek quiet wherever you can find it.  The closest and best quiet at hand is to be found in the bosque at the Rio Grande Nature Center State Park.


I say that it was quiet there and realize anew what a strangely relative idea "quiet" is.  The wind can clatter through every leaf on every cottonwood in the bosque; it can roar among the treetops.  Every Canada goose that loiters in the wetland can grumble and honk all the live-long day; the sandhill cranes can creak and the ravens croak, and somehow all of that counts as quiet.  Is the difference between wild sound and urban noise about anything physical?  About the amplitude or frequency of sound waves acting on the ear?  Do the hammer, anvil, and stirrup resonate more comfortably to some sounds than others?  Or is the difference all in our minds?

I have no answers, of course, but it was lovely to ponder the questions in a lazy, meandering way while literally meandering among the cottonwood trees along the path.


The quiet of the bosque is partly a visual thing, I think.  The cottonwoods are so very tall, and the undergrowth so very small that the "forest" is airy and open.  You could (and some people do) actually ride a horse through it without getting tangled up in brambles or low-hanging branches.  The canopy is open, too.  Cottonwoods shed branches in time of drought, so even among the oldest trees the crowns are seldom thickly leaved.


You can stand directly under a tree in the middle of the bosque and still watch a Cooper's hawk (I think) soaring overhead, or see the outstretched necks of a flock of cranes heading for the wetlands.  Nothing in the bosque crowds you; nothing hems you in.  But those big trees do shelter you from the wind.

The river was quiet, even more so than usual.  After two years of extreme drought the waters are extra-sluggish and low.  They barely seem to move as they make their tired way south.  If rivers were mythical people, the Rio Grande would be a Lotus Eater.  It doesn't inspire you to do much but take a nap on the bench beside its banks in afternoon sun.  It certainly would, you just know it, if given half a chance.


In the still waters of the wetlands beside the river Canada geese were looking sleepy themselves, in an afternoonish sort of way; a little drowsy, a little peaceful.  No feeding or flying, just aimless floating.  Floating, sailing, drifting.  Occasionally some of the geese would take it into their heads (or wherever) to drift somewhere else.  And so, eventually, without really exerting themselves, they would.


In that atmosphere of sleepy quiet it made me laugh to see this sign:


"Please stay ff," is what I read:  fortissimo, the musical term for REALLY LOUD.

The bosque??  Loud?  REALLY LOUD?   I thought about the soothing, wild sounds I'd heard and about the spaciousness and ease and safety of this little nature preserve, and fortissimo became an impossibility.  The sign dwindled to State Park reality, with a typical bit of pointless vandalism:  "Please stay (o)ff."

Like quietness, though, loudness is about more than sound.  It's about vibrancy, about the vitality of small lives, the lizards and towhees and sparrows rustling through fallen leaves, the geese and wood ducks and coots dabbling their way through the wetlands, the cranes feeding in the corn fields beside the river, and the red-eared sliders still basking in the sun   It's about the cottonwoods, standing tall above them all and extending sheltering arms, leaves rattling in the wind, and glowing like small suns with October and the sun behind them.

I turned for home, toward the honest, urban sounds of staple guns and hammers and jovial shouts and tinny music, and the neighbor's dogs barking at it all.


And I thought, Yes, indeed, dear bosque—please stay ff.

21 comments:

  1. Thanks Stacy for a beautiful Fall post. What is noise and how do we let it affect us? Sometimes we take sounds for granted. I am missing the song birds as they have taken flight for warmer climates south. You have given me a refreshing pause to enjoy those sounds that are left in a warm sunny Fall afternoon. Will go out tomorrow and enjoy the fortissimo of life!

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    1. Mark, I'm so glad you enjoyed the post, and hope that you did get out to enjoy nature at its most fortissimo! The song birds do leave an empty spot when they go. I find myself missing the sounds of crickets and katy-dids now, too, as the evenings are getting longer. Somehow the hum of the furnace just isn't the same!

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  2. I remember the builders bolting in doorframes, that was loud. And why are barking dogs so bloody irritating? I think I pack their noise in a thick layer of resentment against Those People who LET their dogs BARK! Somehow birds and frogs, who may be just as 'loud' are not noisy.

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    1. Diana, I also think that when dogs are BARK-BARK-BARKing for HOURS on end, they're usually frustrated or lonely or desperate, and that comes through in their voices. Birds and frogs are just being cheerfully themselves!

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  3. I'm so glad you posted these images - they are so different from what I imagined in your part of the country! After all cottonwoods thrive in soggy Seattle. Who would have thought they also thrived in New Mexico?

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    1. Karen, the rivers are their own wonderful ecosystems out here--night and day different from everything around them and about the only places in the flatter parts of NM where you'll see trees at all. The cottonwoods are pretty much the only big trees we have.

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  4. I work at home and mostly, it is quiet. In the warm months, I sometimes sit outside and work. The birds, the rustling of the leaves, the chipmunks don't bother me. But let someone turn on their lawnmower or loud music, and I am so disturbed. Nature sounds are soothing, comforting, relaxing. A very nice post...I'll stay FF. :)

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    1. More power to you, staying FF, Michelle! Working outside with birdsong and chipmunks for company sounds absolutely lovely. Lawnmowers are pretty hard to take for any length of time, aren't they? One nice thing about all the gravel people landscape with out here is that lawn mowers just aren't necessary.

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  5. I didn't sleep for weeks after we moved to ABQ. The city is so violently contained--the noise and movement never stop. Hemmed in tightly by pueblos, mountains, mesas. But follow a trail a mile up into the heights--or hike in the bosque--you'd never know 500,000 people were a mile away. The miracle of New Mexico. Even better now, in the mountains.

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    1. Joanne, I'm always amazed at how complete the sense of escape is, even on those trails in the heights where you're looking out over the whole city. I hadn't thought about the city being contained like that before--ABQ is similar in a lot of ways to Denver when I was growing up, so that sense is familiar enough that I don't really notice it. I see what you mean, though. The mountains... yes, I think about moving up there sometimes, or to any of the quieter places!

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  6. The vandals in my part of the world don't use words like fortissimo.
    Hopefully your new neighbours will be gardeners too.

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    1. If there's one thing NM is known for, it's for having classy vandals.
      My neighborhood had a plant exchange this past spring for the first time--maybe we'll be able to encourage more people to give gardening a try.

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  7. Sound is something I think of often since 9/11. After the airplanes were grounded, I realized how silent it was. And how much noise the airplanes made flying overhead. I hadn't remembered hearing the planes before, until they were silenced. Now I notice each plane that flies overhead. They are very loud to me, but most people don't notice them. I suppose it's like the carpenter's music. It's only loud when you want silence.

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    1. Holley, so many sounds just "live" in the background, where they don't mean anything to us--a kind of white noise soundtrack. It takes something big to bring them out of the background, like 9/11 did for you. Now airplanes mean something... The composer John Cage said that there was no such thing as silence, just different degrees of paying attention.

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  8. I am lucky where I live that it is a bit less noisy. In the summer and warm spring the people noises take over but not as much as one would think except the roar of boats on the lake across the street...the sounds of nature are loud here with the birds and insects making most of them...I do enjoy silence even from nature sometimes as I need a rest from it all...I love where you find your solace.

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    1. Donna, I would think even motor-boats could have their charms, as the kind of sound that says "summer!" with a little extra glee. Our senses do need total rest sometimes, even from pleasant sounds. I will try to remember that by the end of winter when I am fretting at all the silence...

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  9. Stacy, This has given me a lot of food for thought. I am notoriously intolerant of others' "noise." But I welcome the sounds of nature; even when they are harsh or loud, I don't classify them as "noise." I wouldn't dream of plugging myself into music of my own choosing when I am out for a walk because I don't want to miss the call of the red-tailed hawk, or the scolding of the squirrels, or the honking of the geese flying overhead. But why does one kind of sound grate on my nerves, while the other doesn't?? Hmmm. Thanks, as always, for providing an opportunity for philosophical reflection. -Jean

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    1. Jean, I'm the same way--driven up the wall by stereos and lawnmowers, and soothed by twittery sparrows. I do wonder if there's a physical reason (especially with lawnmowers and power tools), but suspect that generally the difference in perception is more psychological. Maybe something to do with attention/inattention? I'm thinking about the idea of "inattentional blindness" and what a good thing "inattentional deafness" is for most sounds. Maybe the most irritating ones are the ones that force themselves into our awareness and don't let us not pay attention to them.

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  10. Felt I was with you in the cotton woods. Your images reminded me of a fatastic holiday last new year at Zion State Park. I think noise is dependant on my mood as much as anything else, but on the whole I love the sounds of the insects in the garden but hate other people's music drifting over to me. Christina

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    1. Christina, yes, I think what counts as noise has a lot to do with mood, too--and context. I'm glad you enjoyed the images--and that you enjoyed Zion! A lot of the west/southwest has a similar feel to it, with the openness and rock formations and big skies.

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  11. Hi Stacy, the golden autumn leaves of the cotton wood forest doesn't seem right against the bright blue sky and strong sunshine. I still can't reconcile the two, which is why the second picture just looks odd to me. It is a beautiful picture, but doesn't seem to "add up". I hope the building work by you is brief and doesn't bother you for long.

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