My husband is probably the funniest man I’ve ever met. He constantly plays on words or comes up with excruciating puns, and he always cracks up his audiences. My oldest son was visiting, and my husband made one of his wordplays (I don’t remember what it was now). Everyone laughed except my boy, who kept a straight face. I said, “Kevin, that was funny, why aren’t you laughing?”
He said, “Mom, it’s just white noise.”

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[Flashback]

When the man who would become my husband stepped into my home for the first time, a strange look crossed his face. His eyes were wide, as he glanced around with wonder. Believe me, I was suddenly petrified, because I liked this fellow and was hoping he would stick around. I thought something might have offended him.

I looked around wildly thinking, “What does he find so appalling? Could it be the collection of African masks?” Some people had mentioned after seeing them that they thought I was involved in voodoo.

“Is it the picture of Keb Mo over the fireplace?” I thought.

Another man had pointedly asked me why I had a painting of a “black man” in my living room. My standard reply to idiocy like that is “Pigmentation doesn’t matter to me. I even like some white trash.” I didn’t go out with that man again. Was this guy prejudiced, too? It would be a killer for the relationship.

Was it the three cats? If he was a cat hater, this would never do! Another man I didn’t go out with, when asked if he liked cats, told me, “Sure, let’s share recipes.”

Or was it that my house, as my children so rudely put it, “looked like a Chili’s Restaurant?”[note: In those days Chili's had knickknacks everywhere you turned, it was serious overkill and collected dust like crazy!]

Finally, I blurted out, “What’s wrong?”

He smiled. “Nothing at all,” he said. “It’s so clean, and there is no noise.”

Noise?

Well, that was true, if you didn’t count very talkative cats and the shwoosh of airplanes from Dallas/Fort Worth airport. I don’t need a lot of noise, because of all the voices in my head!

“Don’t you watch television?” he asked.
“To put me to sleep.” I said.
“Don’t you play your stereo?”
“Sometimes.”

He gazed at me with the fascination of a seven-year-old boy who has found an interesting bug on the sidewalk.

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[Flash forward six years]

My house actually throbs. I have married the man of my dreams, acquired a teenage stepson, and now have five extremely talkative cats. I rarely get to hear the voices in my head.

After my husband stumbles into the kitchen to get his coffee each day, he switches on the television. It doesn’t matter what’s on, he wants the noise. When the boy comes home from school, the television goes on downstairs, while he sits in the loft upstairs and peers over the railing. At the same time, the computer is constantly saying “bloop” (it sound more like “bleededoop” but I’m no good with onomatopoeia) as he sends instant messages to his friends. Often, he is carrying on a conversation on the cell phone AND listening to music from the stereo in his room. Talk about multi-tasking!

The televisions stay on all evening, and the noise doesn’t end at lights out. Both of my men need the whirr of an oscillating fan to produce white noise for them so they can sleep. And, then the cats come out to play….

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[Last night]
I know the time of morning it is, because of the waves of heat that roll through my body causing the sheets to be drenched. The hot flashes come each night at 2:00 a.m. I don’t mind it so much, because the house is relatively quiet and I can be alone with my thoughts. In the kitchen, gulping water to try to cool myself, I hear it: the coyotes are yipping.

I wrote about the coyotes before, but no one was “listening” then. Coyotes use my yard as their pathway into the neighborhood. Last night, they stood at the edge of the field behind my house yipping and yapping with glee. Now, I actually like the sound, because it touches some primal nerve in my soul. But, I know that when the coyotes are happy, some unfortunate creature in the neighborhood has come to dinner (and was the dinner).

I sat on the back porch, breathing the smell of oncoming rain in the air, and just listened. The coyotes went their way. But, there were other sounds. I heard the drone of the heating unit, and shut out the sound. I could hear an occasional car on the road beyond the field. I closed my eyes and listened harder. How many sounds, I wondered, could I hear? That darn mockingbird ruffled his feathers, as he re-arranged himself in the tree above me, but he was sleeping instead of serenading me. The wind whispered in the trees. That gnarled old oak tree that leans over my porch even creaked. A few sprinkles of rain pattered on the roof. I heard the opossum rustling through the leaves in my garden. A cricket chirped, and his lover answered. I just kept breathing, and listening…until finally I heard what I sought. I heard the sound of my own heart beating.

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When was the last time you listened — really listened? Do you listen when a song comes on the radio? Do you listen for the birds that sing in your yard? Do you listen when others speak to you?
Or, is it all white noise?