Sound Patterns

It's quiet here. I don't quite know how I failed to notice that before - I guess that I've been a city girl so long that background noise had become exactly that, part of the background and something that I tuned out to the point that it didn't even register anymore. So the absence didn't actually register when I came down here, because I was used to not paying attention.

Now I'm living in an area where it's a minor hike from the house to the main road. There's a neighbor, but they're far enough away that I doubt they could hear me if I hollered at the top of my lungs, and the cows are distant enough that I haven't heard them at all. The only noises from outside that penetrate the house are wind, rain, and the occasional cat pawing at the door to come in. Yesterday at work, I heard a siren outside, and it took me a full minute to parse the sound - I had gotten so used to being in an outside-noise vacuum that this strange howling intruding from somewhere else didn't fit, and didn't make sense.

I've been here for a month, and it's going to feel weird going home in a few weeks. I've gotten used to quiet, and a little isolated. I'm comfortable spending my evenings on the sofa with a friend and a crochet hook, looking out the window at hillscapes and watching satellite news from another part of the country. I've learned what life is like without traffic, and how to eat with one hand while holding an infant, and the deer no longer phase me, even when they're standing in a gang blocking the driveway. I miss public transportation and second-hand bookstores and every-other-evening-out, but I'm starting to realize that readjusting to home is going to be as awkward at first as adjusting to here was....