Peace

There is no peace here at Casa de Crazy.

Things beep and boop, creak and groan, buzz and hum, whoosh and whir.

The phone rings, rings again.

Cats meow.

The Evil Genius is never still and does not value or even understand silence - he seems to need to fill it with his motion and noise. If I don't pay attention, stop what I'm doing and focus on him, he escalates, often until I snap at him, send him outside, feelings hurt.

The baby cries.

The neighbor's dog barks.

Some of the noise is alright-wind in the trees, frogs peeping, the coyote pack yipping and laughing on the next ridge over (we are not out in the wilds, here - the coyote have adapted to farms and cluster housing), the baby cooing, giggling, making her happy noises - but too often the good stuff is interrupted by distant highway noises, loud voices at the neighbors', aircraft overhead, cars cruising through, civilization refusing to give us even a moment without a reminder of its existence.

I have occasionally wished I could scream "Shut up!!!" at all of it. I have even wondered if I wouldn't be happier deaf. Selectively deaf, deaf on demand, able to push some magical mute button that would allow me to savor some silence.

Without silence, without calm, without peace, I find it very difficult to do anything more than simply make it from one day to the next. I would like to do, to be, more...