DO YOU HEAR THAT?

    
 When I first moved from a more rural suburban area to the city, noise was welcomed and novel.  I had been widowed and lived away from neighbors for some time;  hearing people was a comforting acknowledgement that I was not alone in this world; an affirmation that I was among the living.  I became numb to the sundry of noises that reverberated through my home, car and body.  I could easily work in my yard and be oblivious to the sounds marching around me; they had become so familiar that they became white noise.

I lived near  highways and hospitals; there were the endless sirens of ambulances, fire trucks and police cars. Then of course there was the occasional gun shots heard in the distance.  You usually had no idea where they originated or what their target was but you could safely assume they were not hunters. The police car’s bright lights  in the middle of the night, changing from red to blue was distracting as they would light up the front of my house.  My dog, “Red ” would then be alerted that she should be on guard duty.  This happened periodically when the neighbor across the street, who always chose the middle of the night to have a psychiatric melt down, would get the police called on her by any number of sources.  Then there were the trains clanking as they connected; you couldn’t see or hear them during day but at night the sound carried from a mile away. Because I lived in the corner of a triangle of cities and on the edge of St. Louis I was in ear shot of several different scary, inaudible voices that roared  from emergency warning systems.  I could never understand what the voices were saying but because of the tone and usually the color of the sky, I knew it was something ominous and a fear- provoking sound.  On any day there were the horns honking for many reasons, but what I came to know as the “Southside Door Bell” was the most annoying.  This is when my neighbor’s family would pull up in front of her house before 7AM and lay on the horn to announce that her ride to the garage sales had arrived.  Of course there were the cars that you heard or felt their music several blocks before they actually could be seen.  Helicopters are popular in the city; they use them to air lift patients, for traffic reports, news reports and of course the police department used them to chase people down who may be running through a neighborhood.  The helicopters took on an entirely different nuance than the “Whirly Birds”  that I loved to watch on television in my youth.  In fact, the sound of the blades chopping through the sky became unsettling as I was sure there would be a great chance that a sad announcement would follow. All this in a desirable, "quiet" suburban neighborhood on the edge of the city. 

After years of living in the same area, hearing the same noises that had become part of me,  something suddenly happened that changed what I heard.  Slowly, an undisturbed night’s sleep was a rarity, sounds that  had been oblivious to me were becoming annoying and I more readily identified them as noise.  Red even appeared to be more irritated by the sights and sounds of the city.  What started this progression of change?  One short visit to the farm last January started this ball rolling.

My first visit to the farm was unplanned and a whirl wind.  Randy was in St. Louis visiting and had proposed.  The day he was returning to the farm, just as he was walking out the door, I received news that my mother in Kansas City was having a health crisis with an unknown outcome.  Without a moment’s hesitation Randy insisted that I pack up and go with him to be with my mother.  I tossed things in the car and off we went.  The five hour road trip was filled with phone calls back and forth to the hospital, nursing home and family.  My heart was racing from all the things that had happened in the last 48 hours.  Once my brain and body gets cranked up, it is hard to turn it down.  We arrived very late; my mother was stable and sleeping, so we went straight to the farm.  We stepped out of the car and the cold crisp January air hit me in the face and then he said, “Look up.”  It wasn’t the cold air that took my breath away, it was the silence and the star filled sky.  Not a sound , except the rocks that rolled under my feet as I walked to the center of the driveway to be in a clearing to get an even better view.  Randy noticed the stars, I noticed the silence, the lack of electric energy that was NOT whirling around me.  There was no high level buzz from transformers or street lights.  It was a peace like I had rarely experienced. 

That first night was so still I was sure I would never go to sleep, but instead, I experienced one of my best night’s sleep.  With every consecutive visit my body became more and more adjusted to the sounds of the country and the lack of  noise.   As we would pack up to head back to the city my body would start getting tense and anxious knowing that it was going to have to live with a lot of extra energy and sounds that didn’t exist on the farm.  By April we were in the city five days and the farm 2 days.  We kept this schedule through this past December with extra days at the farm thrown in here and there.  With every trip it became more obvious that our hearts belonged on the farm and so did our bodies. 

These are some of the sounds that I hear.  I have come to realize that they  are melodic, music to my ears and in perfect harmony with my body, even the truck growling down our gravel road is a reminder that we are not alone on this planet and that there are other farmers making their way through their daily chores.  The cracking of the wood in the stove, not only warms our home but our hearts.  There is something very comforting to hear wood crackle and pop as it's embers glow a reassuring red that tells us we are warm and safe.  When I walk outside the geese honking over head alerts us that the weather is changing and they are taking heed. They greet us with a hello and a good bye.  We can see them working together as they plow their path through the sky, taking turns breaking the wind for the other members of their flying team.  At night when we stand gazing and marveling at the moon and stars (one of our favorite things to do)  it is not uncommon to hear the voice of an owl or the songs of the coyotes.  Sometimes we hear the coyotes answering each other.  As we walk through the timber we hear the sticks breaking beneath our feet, the leaves rustle with each step; these sounds reminds us that we are leaving tracks and scents just like the deer, rabbits and  raccoons ahead of us.  Although these animals make very little noise,  when our dogs discover their scent, they make up for the silence of the wildlife.  When the wind blows in the country you can actually hear the melody that it plays as it weaves through the trees, limbs, leaves and buildings.  When we walk through the orchard we hear the fruit falling from the trees.  Occasionally,  it is as though someone is sitting in the tree and purposefully tossing us an apple or pear, ripened to perfection, just for our pleasure and in the perfect moment.   The trickling of the creek screams at the dogs to go swimming.  It really doesn’t matter how big the body of water is, the sound of the water running is soothing and it is an invitation to fun for the dogs, kids and big people too.  There is nothing that says summer night like the call of the bull frogs and locust.  Their voices swell and diminish in a wave that they all get on and ride from dusk to dawn. It can lull you to sleep and seems to be  synchronized with the lights of the fire flies. The occasional gun shots never alarms me.  Shooting guns in the country is more recreational than anything else and more times than not they are shooting at a can or a target rather than an animal.  The hoofs of the cows as they clatter down the hill towards Randy are like a love song.  They know and trust that he has come just for them, to bring them food, check their water supply or to rid them of pesky flies.  They are obviously comforted by his presence and the harmonious sound of running hoofs and mooing is validation of their gratitude.

The list of sounds could go on and on and I know I have left out some of my favorites. I hear and learn about new sounds daily.  The point was not to make a list but to help you hear some of the sounds that called me to be a full time farmer’s wife.  These are some of the sounds that sooth my soul, lowers my blood pressure and creates a state of tranquility in my life that has been absent until now.  These are sounds that draw me into the stillness and create a longing for more stillness.  These sounds create a gap between sounds that allows me to think about bigger, greater things, to hear answers to prayers and sometimes to not have to think at all. 

Now can you understand more clearly why

I LOVE THE FARM

&

I LOVE YOU RANDY