02-09-19 Noice
02-09-19 PUSH ARROW TO BEGIN AUDIO
“How deep is the pool” Sophie asked her neighbor, who was showing off his remodeled backyard. After baring months of construction noise, she surveyed the new yard. She wasn’t there to be impressed with the pool, but to make certain the work was complete and the noise would stop. She didn’t wait for the answer and turned to leave. The pool owner casually said, “We are having our first pool party tomorrow. Come by if you can.” As she was walking off the patio, she noticed the two large speakers mounted on beams. ‘Oh shit’ she thought. Loud music. Construction noise was just the beginning. From the patio she could clearly see her living room and bedroom windows in direct line of the speakers. She just then fully realized the hell in her future.
Sofia was a book writer by occupation but also freelanced for newspapers. She needed quiet to work and she loved her quiet serene home. But now a new neighbor with a new party backyard was threatening to destroy it all. As she walked slowly back home, she became more panicked by the terrible thoughts of her future. She needed a plan.
So, she immediately began writing. Writing was her way to find clarity and solutions. She would write at the top of the page her problem ‘Quieting the noisy neighbors’. Then let her pin write anything that came to her mind. This method had always been surprisingly successful for her. And now she needed a solution more than ever. Her pin flew in a rapid stream of words. She was in a trance state, where the pin was directing her. After about an hour of dictation, the pen stopped. It was finished. Sophie was not aware of the meaning of words while she was writing. Afterwards when she reread the writing, it was the first time she understood what was said.
It was not what she expected. She hoped for ways to make the swimming pool unswimable and the speakers unplayable but that was not the plan. The plan was all about her and her changes. She always had a remarkable ability to focus. She could spend hours with her mind concentrated on her writing. But this solution plan just wanted her to go deeper to a place where distractions were impossible. ‘Where distractions were impossible’ she could not image what that meant. She knew she could focus but noise was always a distraction. She read the writing over and over. But it failed to make since. Especially the most repeated line ‘Noise is the Catalyst’. How can that be true? It is the opposite of what she knows to be true. But the last line encouraged her. It said ‘allow the noise, and write with joy’. She trusted her writings but this was so counter-intuitive.
Then came the next afternoon. She could see the party guests arriving in swim wear and she heard the speakers turn on with dance music. In short time she was in misery. The noise was over whelming and irritating. She shut all her windows but that did little to buffer the sounds. She reluctantly sat at her computer to write.
As she hit the first key a remarkable sensation came over her. It came in the form of an image. The noise transformed into a large hand and the hand pushed her down. It felt gentle but firm. She couldn’t tell where down was but it seemed to get deeper and deeper with the pushes of the hand. She had the sensation that she had reached some type of bottom. There was complete solitude and words swam around her waiting to be used. The computer keyboard streamed words that made sentences and created stories that appeared on the computer screen. Time had no meaning. She worked in bliss.
Then suddenly the hand released and Sophie became aware of herself sitting at the computer in her home. She hadn’t finished the story. Then she noticed the party was over and no noise was coming from the neighbors. She panicked. She needed noise to finished. She ran to her radio and found the dance music station. She turned up the volume and immediately felt the hand. She returned to her computer and finished her story to her satisfaction.
Just as she was closing her computer, she noticed a loud pounding on her front door. She opened the door and there stood two police officers and her party neighbor. ‘Mam we got complaints from all of neighbors, you must turn down your noise’. Sophie step over to her party neighbor and shook his hand. “Thank you so much for introducing me to noise”. He looked at her like she was crazy. She smiled, turned off the music and shut the door. Peace***