Noise

I am currently in Shreveport LA, being hosted by an SCA couple.  They have an empty suite in their house, and have been wonderful hosts.

The differences between here and Central America are many, but the ones that stand out the most are density and noise.  The modern suburb was mostly missing on my journey through CA.  There were a few gated communities which could have been from anywhere in Canada or the States, but for the most part, the towns were a tumble of cramped spaces.  Roads hardly wide enough for one car, let alone two.  No room between houses, or perhaps a slip, a walk way barely big enough for me to walk down, small spaces that seem to wind their way through in shadow and dim light, hemmed in by concrete and cinder brick.

And the noise.  Bouncing off the hard surfaces of the houses and road, songs played at full volume, with the speakers brought out front so the whole town could hear.  Firecrackers, people practicing musical instruments ( from bad to great and all the places in between, but mostly on the bad side ) voices singing along to the radio and on Sundays, hymns sung way too loud and very off key.  Bits of song would travel with you as you walk along the streets.  Radios and sound systems in the shops would play, usually just loud enough to be heard from the street, but  sometimes so loud as to be annoying from a block away.  The music would fade away as the night came in, to be replaced by the thumping of the music from the bars and clubs.  Those sounds would die a natural death at around 11pm (1am on weekends), but the random bangs and whistles of fireworks never had a cerfew.  They would be set off for any reason, or next to no reason.  Birthdays, saint's day, anniversary, death, wedding, graduation, solstice, and on and on.

After being in San Pedro La Laguna for a while, I never got used to it, but perhaps inured is a better term.

Then, near the end of my stay at the lake, I met a fellow from the USA, one who had combat related PTSD.  It seemed truly  weird to me that someone who had the syndrome would choose to live in a place where truly loud firecrackers would be set off anywhere at anytime.  He talked briefly with me about it though, and his therapist had recommended it to him as a remedial therapy, and it was working.
I certainly believe that it would not work for everyone, but for him, the random nature of the noise began to re-set the part of his brain that automaticly associated loud bangs with combat and violence to one that said it was only noise.  How long he had been in the town, I did not know, but he expressed his opinion that it worked for him.  He was much calmer over all, and the sound of a startlingly loud bang no longer triggered episodes for him.

But me on the other hand, in a lot of ways, I am glad I have had time in a quiet place, with only mild traffic noise and muted sounds from a basketball court half a block away.  Even that gets a little much sometimes, which is weird.  At times the quieter it is, the quieter I want it to be, the only sounds I want to intrude are the ones I choose to play on my sound system. 

Which I want to then play loudly.

Humans are odd creatures, and the older I get the more I realize I am as odd as most of those around me.

Likely odder.