Even The Mountain Goats Are Staying In

It became pretty clear last night that it was going to pile up over the morning hours. Yet, somehow I was still surprised to see so much snow upon waking up at 7:30 am.

I went window to window to check out the snow -here on the knockout rose in the front yard.

It is the silence that is most appealing. It is surprising that no one has been out and about -the sidewalk snow is untouched by feet. By 8 am, our streets are typically filled with noise: garbage trucks, delivery trucks, car alarms, horns, people walking dogs, people walking their kids to school, people off to work, engines warming up, cats yowling at each other in corners and the distant noises of all that takes place on our main drags. Today, the thick snow absorbs many of those sounds and so it seems that everyone has decided to stay in.

Oh no, the ruining machine. Welcome back noise. I think these are great tools, but I was hoping for another few minutes before their hum and thrum began. Not long after this will be the engines revving and tires screaling on icy underpinnings.

For now, though, a rare opportunity to witness our front yard sidewalk snow untouched.

Sound

As I exited the subway tonight, accosted by noise, I thought of all the sounds I encounter from work to home. It goes like this:

At work, in a model studio full of wood cutting tools -its the steady whistling wind of the dust collection, the circular screech of the sliding saw, the rattling of the bad bearings in the old band saw motors, the deep thrumming of the re-saw, the rhythmic wih, wih, wih of the disc & belt sander, the thrumping of the drum blower that sounds pretty much like a dryer full of sneakers, the whirring of the laser cutters' fans, the laser pulsing which sounds not so much like Star Wars but eeeeeeeeaaaaaaa as it scores and vaporizes wood and pulp, the rattle-knock of the air compressor blowing wind onto the laser's flame, the wah, wah, wah of the nail gun compressor, and the drill press, table saw, and the hammer, and the.....

Ahh, to leave such a place and enter the traffic noise of Columbus Circle, down quickly into the subway always just when the steely roar of the 1 train coming in, down another flight to the A/D platform. Here its the musician banging his drums, trains roaring in, roaring out, lookout -the blare of the garbage train horn and its locomotive humrumhumrumhumrum. Onto a train, screech and squeal, bing and bong. 

Finally my stop, in Middle Brooklyn, I exit and it always seems another train is roaring in on the opposite side as I exit. Man with luggage opens the siren's gate as I rush to the portal to the outside world. 

Outside the rush, the constant rush of automobile whooshing and occasional Harley thromping and garbage truck harrumphing as I am ear level with the Prospect Expressway in its last throes of 70 mph. This sound follows me to the overpass, the sounds of street traffic, the rolling steel gates crashing down. I turn the corner two half-blocks from home and hear the buzzing of the sodium halide lights of the nursery and then the turbulence of wind in my ears.  As I turn the last corner I can hear my footsteps. I slow. I pause at the front yard garden and it seems so quiet compared to the day's noise. I imagine silence.

But I know true silence. In it there is a ringing sound.