Sensory Overload: Sound

For today's post I thought I would revisit a topic that I last wrote about a few years ago (or at least a post that wasn't creative non-fiction about that particular sensory). The impetus for revisiting this particular topic was the type of battery recharging I've been able to accomplish sporadically in the past few months.

I don't know about you, but for the past few months I've been figuratively battered from pillar to post by a lethal combination of family stress, work stress and financial stress. The only way that I've realistically been able to combat this triple thread to my sanity is to take refuge in my surrounding and surrender myself to the sounds of what life has to offer. More often than not, these interludes, whether for a few minutes or a few hours,; have been my saving grace to dealing with a troubled mind.

For those of you who may not know this, I don't use an external alarm clock to wake up. I have an internal alarm clock/snooze button that starts waking me up at 4a every morning (yes, that includes S&S too). Right now, because overnight temps are in the lo 60's/hi 50's, I sleep with the windows open. And because of that propensity for wanting to breath fresh air, I'm usually serenaded by the mountain's fine feathered friends in those early morning hours.



A prelude concerto to start the morning is exactly what the doctor ordered. Usually when I become minimally alert to my surroundings, that delightful little concerto relaxes me to the point when it becomes my external snooze button. When it ends, it usually means it's time for me to get up.

And if the birds don't wake me up, my cat does. She's my other external alarm clock, because if I don't get up exactly one-half hour before I'm supposed to, she will plant herself at the foot of the stairs and meows loud enough to wake up half the household.

Another way that sound relaxes me is when I'm listening to bluegrass.

On Saturday mornings, one of the local college radio stations plays bluegrass from 9a thru 1p. Because a good chunk of suburban Connecticut is semi-rural, listening to bluegrass while driving around allows my mind to wander just a little bit. Between the sounds of acoustic instruments and the greenery that is Cedar Mountain and the valley, there is almost nothing that can get under my skin. I'll soak up the audio and video to the point where my brain is realistically empty.

Finally, we have the sounds of the mountain and the suburban neighborhood.

As I've mentioned on numerous occasions, I live approximately 100 feet from Cedar Mountain, so on most spring, summer and autumn weekends, you will find me sitting in my side yard under the shade of a non producing crab apple tree, listening to the gentle breeze wafting down the mountain and the quiet fugue of the various birds that call both the neighborhood and the mountain home.

The gentle rustling of the leaves combined with the quiet buzz that is the main area of Newington (trust me, I am so insulated from the hustle and bustle of Newington in my neighborhood that everything is really a quite hum) and the never ending pedestrian traffic (because what is a mountain really good for if you can't lose yourself in its warm embrace), really is the thing that quiets and calms the inner turmoil of my life.

And that my friends, is all you can really ask for.

(c) 2014 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved.