The perfect place for a writer is in the hideous roar of a city, with men making a new road under his window in competition with a barrel organ, and on the mat a man waiting for the rent.
—Henry V. Morton, 1892 – 1979
On Saturdays after the gym we meet neighbors at Coffee on the Point. It’s an informal gathering; sometimes two or three, sometimes five or six. Last week there were six, and discussion was lively. Politics and art are recurring topics—we’re all raging liberals—but last Saturday Jerry told us when he moved next to the fire station and the light rail he learned quickly to sleep through both. Then, on a Sunday, when light rail has an abbreviated schedule, he woke in the middle of the night, thinking, “what was that?” He thought about it a minute, and said, “oh, right. Nothing.”
Bill, who lives in Cheesman but we let him join us anyway, chimed in with his own anecdote of living on a one-way street and sleeping through buses and garbage trucks, but waking in the midst of a snowstorm because it was too quiet. “That’s how we knew we were city people,” he concluded.
Henry V. Morton, British journalist, dates himself with that barrel organ, but his point holds up. For a writer, nothing works like a deadline. For city people, nothing works like noise. On a recent Wednesday afternoon, lawnmowers rumbled out front. Next door, where the house was being gutted, toilets and drywall flew out the upstairs window into the roll off below with resounding thuds. Across the alley, tree pruning commenced just as I was getting into the revision of my current project. Being both a writer with a Friday deadline and a city person, I managed two drafts without a blink.
We are ten minutes from downtown, but my airy little studio early in the morning feels like country; sparrows twittering, fresh air wafting in the southern window, the sun not up enough to glare in the eastern ones, the musicians across the alley, the gang-affiliated young men down the street all asleep for hours yet before they begin disturbing the peace. There is such a thing as too much noise.
Full disclosure: after a few months of nearly nightly rowdiness in the summer, the gang guys, who never stay anywhere for long, moved on, and that bluegrass band kept us up only once in July, and quit playing at 10:30. (Hey, we’re old: we go to bed early.) Now it’s November, the weather’s cool, and our nights are calm. I love winter. The neighbor who bought the “modernista” place that infilled our Victorian block a few years ago came from Cap Hill and said, “it’s so quiet here.” I was startled, but then realized, compared to Cap Hill, Whittier is quiet.
At least, what passes for quiet in the city: helicopter, on its way to an accident; train horn, blasting from intersection to intersection as it comes into town a few miles from us. You mainly hear the trains at night, though, like the elevated portion of I-70. Further away than the railroad tracks, I-70’s dull surf roar is audible when the world’s hushed and the wind blows out of the north.
During the day we have backhoes and such, replacing gas lines. They’ve been methodically working their way through the neighborhood since April. Recession or not, we’re in a construction boom in Whittier—urban infill, we call it now—so add bulldozers and cement mixers where new homes are being built on lots that have always been vacant. Stir in at least two roofing crews, the rhythmic impacts of their hammers punctuated by rapid-fire Spanish.
The daytime mix on my block often connects to Manual High School, which sits across the street. At the start of the school day we get the unmistakable hollow grumble of yellow buses and the bright clatter of teenagers. Twenty minutes and it’s over—kids are in the building. Similar twenty-minute noise clusters occur at lunch and the end of the day. But as Jerry and Bill pointed out, once the noise is familiar, it becomes a sleep aid. A week after school starts, I stop noticing. Manual has been a good neighbor, really. The school doesn’t have loud parties that last all night, keeps its grounds maintained, almost never parks in front of my house and owns no dogs that bark incessantly.
It’s early November, warmer and dryer than it should be. Leaves are eggshells beneath our feet, while those still attached rattle and release in any breeze. The growl of a leaf blower drifts from the next block, and in the back yard a raven who will never be happy repeats his raspy complaint. In the distance, a siren. Just enough background buzz. I open a new document and get to work.
I hear the trains whistling early in the morning when I’m able to have my bedroom windows open!
Ah, city life. Nice work, Pat. Even here in Englewood, four blocks from Broadway and Hampden, there’s always something going on, but the dogs that bark incessantly are the worst. Summer nights with the windows open I keep a fan going—white noise, you know. City noise is sort of like teaching; I wrote more when I was so busy I didn’t have any time.
I love this, Pat. Years ago Joe and I lived two houses from an all night gas station near Alameda and Federal. When we moved to Washington Park it took a week before we could fall asleep in the quiet. For 40 plus years, we too, have enjoyed the sound of the train–the same one that toots at Kathy Sabine on Channel 9 news at 10! And yes, these great leaves make Autumn the noisiest season! Let’s hope Tuesday brings celebration to all our streets.
I love this piece, Dubrava. I particularly like the part about the sounds we become accustomed to. When I first moved into my current house in Bali, I would wake up throughout the night, startled from dreams by the barking and fighting of packs of dogs that roam my neighborhood. I don’t wake up anymore, as their frantic night activities have become a part of the sound tapestry of my sleep. It is when I have house guests, like the couple from Chicago staying with me now, who say blearily in the morning, “I slept well except for all those dogs…” that I think, ‘Oh, yeah, the dogs.’
Pat, nice work. I’ve lived in places with very different night sounds…3 blocks from the University of Denver. Slept like a log even when the students had partys…course I joined in a few times :-). then on to an apartment in Kansas City…slept like a log even when the huge garbage trucks would come by in the early am…at least I was told they came by. Back to Denver and 4 blocks from Universtiy Hospital when it was located on Colfax. No problem sleeping there. Finally 25 years on a ranch near Glenwood Springs…Quiet. Very quiet. The only thing that could wake me was if the horses were noisy…had to check them as they ‘re an animal just looking for a way to get caught in a fence. Now I’m living about 2 miles north of Fort Collins… Quiet. Very quiet. and I’m sleeping here too. Is there something wrong with me? 🙂
I have never lived in a place where I could not hear a train at night. (Excepting those months in other countries.) Even on our island in Maine, you can hear the train from the mainland drifting over from the mainland. I like that analog blues whistle. But living with real city noise (like when I stay with my sister on 99th on Broadway in Manhattan)? Not for me.
I have a theory about why filmmakers put the sound of crickets on the soundtrack in horror movies. (See, for me, crickets are a reassuring nighttime noise.) It’s because filmmakers are city kids, and the lack of city noise scares them!