After my wife died when I decided to run away from society and live in the wilderness, I was looking forward to the silence in nature. At the time, I lived in Florida across the street from a golf course. Between the golf course and my neighbors, my ears were assaulted by lawnmowers, trimmers and leaf blowers running from dawn to dusk nearly every day.
I thought being alone in the desert, the mountains and the forests would bring me some kind of peace. I wasn’t really seeking peace from the noise outside, I was seeking peace from the waves of grief that were knocking me down every minute of every day.
I found silence about a week later in the desert near Tombstone, Arizona – but no peace. Over the next 6 weeks, I spent a lot of time alone with my dog Snickers, but it was my encounters with other people that brought me brief interludes of peace.
After I ended my journey and moved into my new home in Raleigh, the first thing I heard was a neighbor doing yard work up the street. I remember thinking at the time how grateful I was to be back in society, leaf blowers and all.
The reason I bring this up is because lately I’ve been getting annoyed with all the noise on my street. In the mornings, there are car doors slamming constantly for hours. Throughout the day, kids from 4 houses on my street are outside screaming, yelling, laughing, riding scooters, biking, riding electric motorcycles and cars and in general being normal, rambunctious kids – which makes my dogs go berserk.
And then, two days ago, during the usual morning car door slam fest, I had an epiphany. These aren’t the sounds of neighbors that I need to escape- they are the sounds of life. All I needed to do was reframe how I thought about them. Suddenly, they no longer annoyed me.