Today my family and I sat out on the front porch and ate chips and salsa for dinner. The weather was perfect and in the distant background I heard the gock-block tapping time in the distance which can mean only one thing... marching band season. I live right next to a high school that has an amazing marching band that practices ALL summer long. Listening to the tapping of the block made me think about sound and all of the different things we hear throughout a day. I am a dissector of sounds. I love the crunching of a sandwich because the lettuce is crisp, or the way ice sounds when it's swirled around in certain cups. Sound is powerful. It can cause us to stop in the middle of something to look around, it can make us jump, and it can even stir emotions.
Sounds have brought many reactions and emotions into my being. Certain sounds bring peace while others cause me to cringe. Other sounds bring joy, which of course leads to sounds that bring sadness. Sounds can spark memories, and those memories bring even more emotions. I have experienced all of these things while quietly listening to the sounds around me and I'm going to tell specific stories of each. It will probably be a long blog entry but hopefully you can handle it.
The first story I thought of was a time at girl's camp. I am terrified of bugs. In certain circumstances I can handle creepy craw-lies, but I don't like the thought of bugs being all around me while I sleep. It was my second year at girl's camp and I was new in the stake so I didn't know a lot of people. That year we slept in wards and we were assigned to an older girl in the group to bunk with. My buddy was awesome, a girl who was totally into camping and could handle the bugs and stuff. There was one night, however, that she wanted to sleep under the stars and I could just not handle that, so I stayed in my platform tent for two. I invited another friend of mine to sleep with me so I wouldn't get creeped out. She agreed, but she had to bring her bunkmate, and then two other girls got spooked and wanted to sleep with us too. So we added a third bed and tried to fit 5 girls in a two man tent. This wouldn't have been a big deal, but because I was so afraid of bugs we had the flaps to the tent tied down and we were trying to get situated with literally no room, and we had to stop and kill bugs every time they came into our sight. Needless to say, the heat in the small tent quickly rose and I started feeling claustrophobic and overheated. I started crying and I told the girls that I was really hot, which of course freaked everyone out because it was the day we had learned about heat exhaustion, hypothermia, and all that other camping stuff. "Get her out of the tent. Get a leader!" They then proceeded to struggle with untying the tent because my OCD made sure we were tightly secured in our flappy tent. Finally I was out in the fresh air and rushed to Sister Rapp who was bunking alone and laid me out on the bed next to hers. My sleeping bag and sheet were brought to me and Sister Rapp pulled out an ice cold water bottle for me to drink. I laid on the bed and let the cool air run over me... Sister Rapp kept all of her tent flaps open, and for the first time I didn't care. Eventually she laid down and started talking about how she liked the flaps open because it allowed her to listen to the sounds of the cicadas and other creatures as they went about their nightly business. I listened to all the sounds and allowed peace to fill my being. I was asleep in no time.
Unfortunately there are sounds that cause distress instead of peace. The first one that comes to mind is nails on a chalkboard. I cringe just thinking about the sound. Other sounds that cause distress are raised, angry voices, fire sirens, breaking glass, etc. Sometimes complete silence is the most distressing sound of all. There's a lyric to a song that says, "More than empty words I hate this silence. It's getting so loud." I remember asking my mom about that when I was little. "That doesn't make sense mom. How can silence be loud?" She said that one day I would understand, and I do. For example, I have fans in my room to keep it cool. Most of the time I don't even notice the sound of the fan because it blends in and I'm used to hearing it, but there are times where that fan is so loud I can't stand another minute of it. I can't think of anything but the sound of the fan and I don't feel peace until I turn it off. But then, my room becomes too quiet. My mind wanders and my thoughts are too vivid. There is no sound in the room, but I can't escape how loud it is... so I turn the fan back on.
Sounds can bring sadness as well. Most of the time I feel sad when I listen to music. It's not the music, per se, but the way I'm feeling when I hear the music that allows all my emotions to come out. There was this time in high school where I really liked this boy and I wanted him to ask me to homecoming so badly. I know it sounds trivial, but I really liked him and I had never been asked to a dance before so it was really important to me. One night I found out he asked my friend and I acted really excited and happy for her when really I was hurting inside. That night I went home and cried to my mom and she said, "Would you like to spend the evening with your dad at the cabaret?" My dad runs a theater and every month or so they host a cabaret. This particular performance was a cabaret performed by the cast of
West Side Story which was the musical that was going on at the time in the theater. I drove to the theater and felt uplifted by the atmosphere and I soon settled in a corner by myself to enjoy the music. Everything was going well, and then this actor stood up and sang "Make Them Hear You" from the musical
Ragtime. It was a gorgeous peace that evoked my sad feelings and allowed me to cry it out. The song wasn't sad, necessarily, but the sound allowed me to be sad and touched. It was just what I needed to help me move on. Everything was going to be ok.
Now the best sounds are the sounds that bring joy and happiness. I feel such joy when I hear a baby laugh. It's the purest laugh you will ever hear. The sound of laughter always brings me such joy. My favorite memories of girl's camp are the ones where I stayed up late at night laughing with my friends, and hearing all the laughter, and occasional screams, in the tents surrounding me. Other sounds that bring me joy are the sounds of my family talking or jamming out on the front porch. I also love the sounds of nature as I lay down and look at the stars. I especially love looking at the stars with a group of people so you can hear the oohs and ahs of excitement as a star shoots across the sky.
A really cool thing about sound is that it can bring back memories. The gock-block tapping time brings back all the wonderful memories of band camp. The song "Halo" reminds me of all the song blasting sessions I had with my roommates. A squeaky car door reminds me of all the fun car rides I had in Jimmy. Every sound sparks some memory. Just look at what the sound of the gock-block did for me tonight. All of these memories were brought back to me and then I wrote a blog about it. Amazing.
There are so many sounds all around us. So take the time to listen.
