The Sounds of Silence

The sound of Canadian geese honking at first light, heading late from their safe slumber on the lake to the local alfalfa fields. A bugling cow elk and the herd of sparing teenage bucks answering her.  A mother moose murmuring cautiously to her twin charges.  The crinkle of colored leaves as they let go reluctantly from their trees. The laughter of children at the bus stop or coming home from school to play. A football punted into the air or the crack of the bat in the World Series. These are the sounds of autumn.

There is a new sound that has taken over the sounds of silence. It is the sound of suburbia, the hum of humanity, the noise of nuisance: the leaf blower. Whether it’s a wimpy handheld, battery-powered one that whispers or the roar of a stinky, two-stroke backpack model worn by professionals in hoodies and sombreros, it is omnipresent and obnoxious. There is the gas-powered personal version or my low-noise, high-torque electric corded model that offers power and peace. They can be heard in the front yard and the backyard, in the garage, and throughout the house. It is the hum of the affluent, efficient, and the lazy.  Get a rake.

Growing up, I lived in New York, and in the summer, you could always hear the hum of the parkways, especially in the morning and late at night. It was the sound of progress and commerce back then, in a drive-everywhere car culture. Winter sounds to me like the silence of gentle snowfall—or snow falling so hard you cannot hear yourself think. Spring is the sound of birds returning and the bells in the belfry above a campus teeming with new life, greenery, and hope.

While sound is subtle, smell is sublime.  Autumn reeks of retiring, middle-aged leaves at their palette’s best, with their ultimate acceptance of a deteriorating landscape. No matter how much we love fall, we welcome the gentle, dry winter smell of smoke by the fire, with bread in the oven and pies cooling on the counter. Summer smells hot and humid, with sunscreen and bug spray, chlorine and sea salt. April, of course, smells like flowers, Chanel No. 5, farmers burning their ditches, and the thawing earth coming back to life.

Although smell is the most nostalgic, sound is the most magical. It is the music of our lives that sets our tempo and mood, rhythm and rhyme. I can’t define noise, but I know it when I hear it. And what is the opposite of smell—stink, odor? Nothing.

When are we going to protect our senses from the constant hum of humanity, as we covet the night sky or crave the smell of coffee in the morning? These things are sacred and impossible to put a price, worth, or value on. Cast a wide economic net over these attributes when considering cost and benefit, risk and reward, supply and demand. For he who bequeaths the sounds and smells of civilized society to the noxious noise of our busy nation, loses an important tie to nature, nostalgia, reality, the past, and the future.

Get a broom.