Mighty sounds from little acorns grow
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They come all hours of the day and night, crackly popping sounds that set the wheels of imagination turning. When the sun is out, the noises enter the ears as benign nature sounds. But at night, when the quiet of the house amplifies even small sounds, the mind goes to other places.
It’s the first week in the new house, a smallish ranch on a large wooded lot. As with all new houses, this place has strange smells and corners and noises. It took days before I remembered to turn right from the living space to get to the cellar steps and not left. Left takes you to the cul de sac of bedrooms.
It was in the small bedroom that the noises first came, the occasional popping that seemed to come from the side of the house. A herd of deer – and I mean a herd, because there are two does, a buck and four fawns – live in the side yard: could the crackly popping be theirs? There was that one mother deer that stomped and whistled at the farmer when he looked at her.
“I think the deer are poking at the side of the house,” I said after dark one night. The popping crackles intensified, and in the absence of evidence, I conjured danger. My mental picture was of the buck pawing the side of the house while butting it with his antlers. But that was impossible; the deer have kept their distance.
The strange sounds are part of the settling in. My first house was old enough to have five bedrooms with fireplaces, from which emanated what sounded like a sousaphone being punched in the bell. Likewise, furnaces have their own music, as do water heaters and plumbing. Wood expands and creaks, and drywall expands and makes squishy sounds – I swear it does. Certain times of the night a moth flopping around behind a screen can sound like footsteps approaching.
New houses come with keys, codes and instructions for the security system, names of landscapers, and home warranties. That handoff at the closing should be expanded to include a list of noises and their causes. That clanking in the basement is the spin cycle of the washer. Don’t worry about the squeaking from the patio roof, it’s the awning being moved by the wind. Or, alternately, If you hear scratching in the kitchen ceiling, call the exterminator. That would save the new owner all those moments of fear and panic, not to mention damage.
Noise has a way of knitting itself into the fabric of a house. For years , we lived a few blocks from a river dam, whose locks would grind as boats moved through. I suppose we noticed the sounds when we first lived there, but eventually they were just part of the ambient sound of the house, which we paid no mind. When friends spent the night, they woke up bleary-eyed, their sleep interrupted by “that squeaking, grinding noise.” Anyone who spends a first night in a big city will wonder how any resident gets used to the nightlong cry of sirens. But after time, even loud noises because part of the soft bed of sound. After a few restless nights with the crackly popping sound, I opened a bedroom window to let in some fresh air. I heard the sound, but this time there was a visual to go with it.
Acorns were falling from the huge oak tree hanging over the garage roof, landing with a pop far too loud for their size. Those little seeds made all that noise? Late at night, I’d have guessed something more interesting and sinister. But now I know.
Beth Dolinar can be reached at cootiej@aol.com.