Recently, in a mad dash to
leave work after an exhausting week dealing with the time change, spring
allergies, and PMS, I forgot my headphones. This was a big deal, as I am a
stubborn, inveterate headphone wearer. The habit began years ago when I started
commuting by bus regularly in a dicey part of town and needed a way to minimize
the near-constant “asks” and random comments I got from strangers. As it is, I
tend to be a beacon for the downtrodden, (“Hey, lady, you got two dollars so I
can get the bus to my AA meeting?”) the angry and misogynistic, (“Smile, you red-headed
dyke bitch!”) and the desperate (“I just need five dollars for my shelter fee.”).
I can tolerate the normal amount of asks and run-of-the-mill harassment, but over
the years, downtown Seattle has become notoriously difficult to navigate due to
increasingly aggressive panhandling. (I’m not imagining this--if you type “aggressive
panhandling” into Google search, it auto-fills in “Seattle”.) In times past,
the headphones would stave off some of it, but that doesn’t seem to be the case
anymore. Now people just feel at liberty to grab my shoulders or wave their
hands in my face insistently to get my attention.
Yet my headphone habit
persists, because having relied on them for so long, I’ve found it very
difficult to navigate the world without them. I’ve always had a terrible time filtering
out ambient noise, which makes things like routine trips to the grocery store
or walks to the post office anxiety-inducing. Without some way to control the
amount of environmental sound that I take in, I get completely overwhelmed.
With the headphones, I have control over what goes into my ear space. This has
become increasingly essential for my mental health, as the amount of general racket
in the world seems to be ever-increasing. For some reason, every store feels
the need to pipe obnoxious music and hyper, insistent ads through their overhead
speakers, there is non-stop construction everywhere, people are constantly yapping
on their cell phones, mothers feel at liberty to verbally abuse their kids in
public, and couples have no compunction about fighting at the top of their lungs
no matter who’s around them to overhear. Not to mention leaf-blowers.
When I rode the bus for the
first time in literally years without headphones, I was astounded at how noisy
and discordant everything was. The bus engine was loud, the traffic was loud,
some hipster was shamelessly nattering on his phone at full volume, even people’s
breathing was unbearably discordant.
Ironically, earlier in the week, I had listened a podcast called “Reasonably Sound”, in which host Mike Rugnetta explores ambient sound in our everyday
world. He suggested doing a “sound audit”—paying close attention to every sound
you hear in your day and thinking about how that fits in with the overall
landscape of your life. At that point, I broke out into an anxious sweat and
had to stop listening. If I did what he suggested, I’d lose my mind in about
ten minutes. At the same time, I think I know what he’s getting at by
suggesting that experiment. At its core, I think it’s about mindfulness. I
often worry that by blocking out so much of the world; by depending so heavily
on controlling my auditory space, I’m not being fully present to my life. Then again,
I don’t want to be fully present to my life, because so much of what I
encounter on a daily basis is simply demoralizing. I suppose if I was a more
Buddhisty-type of person, I would look at it differently; use it as an
opportunity to practice compassion and loving-kindness instead just trying to
shut it out. But I’m simply not there yet, and may never be. For now, I’m
clinging to my headphones and pretending the world is full of beautiful music
and calm, rational, educated voices instead of clanging, auditory chaos. Here’s
something pretty to listen to.
--Kristen McHenry
No comments:
Post a Comment