Noisy Quiet

 

I tell people I love being at the coast for the quiet, the peacefulness. Really it’s not quiet at all. You can sit outside on a bench and hear the loud roar of the ocean as the tide comes in or out. There is always a loud choir of bird songs, coupled with the variety of crow communications. Chain saws are familiar sounds, and so are lawn mowers. Sound is weird here. Something can sound like it’s happening next door, and it’s really several blocks away.  We planned our life here to be secluded. Our road was once just wooded spaces and a few cleared lots for camping. Now there are as many houses as empty lots. We own two lots, just to keep up the façade that we live in the forest. I look out my windows and see trees and shrubs and can pretend I am lost in the woods, in the peaceful, quiet noise of the coast. We even have traffic sounds, and sometimes sirens. But with all this “noise”, it’s still quieter and calmer and slower than home in the city suburbs. And that’s what I love.

When we first started coming here, both my parents were still alive. They camped here with friends, the lot full of trailers. We camped at the state park and came to visit. The place was full of people enjoying one another’s company. After my mom passed away, we began to join dad camping on the lot with him. In addition to his friends, and our family, our own friends began to join us. We had fun creating meals together outside, playing dominoes on shaky tables, talking around the smoky campfire, filling the space with our noise. We even watched movies outside. We have celebrated birthdays and anniversaries, and the passing of those we love. We just had a celebration of my sister, marking the year of her death.

When we built our house, after dad passed away, I created an outdoor space where we could entertain friends and family around al fresco meals (often with blankets and heaters because it’s unusual to have a warm evening here, even in summer). I loved the sound of family and friends eating and talking and laughing around my table. It’s still one of my favorite things, even though gatherings are fewer now. We were spoiled with gathering every weekend for so many years. I love sharing this space with friends and filling it with raucous games and good food.

When my sister was alive, we spent the summer together here. We would take turns cooking dinners every other night. Our husbands would join us for weekends and then for their vacations. But, for years, my sister and I enjoyed our space together. We had our routines, including latte runs, going into town for groceries and lunches out, binging on favorite movie series. Sometimes it was hard to make the weekend adjustment of adding our husbands to the routine. We made the transitions from trailers to homes.  Whenever friends would join us for a few days, my sister and husband were automatically part of the group. Whether eating meals or playing cards – the action was around a table full of noise. To make it complete, my brother and sister-in-law moved down here permanently for a while. The table was full.

I cannot begin to express how much I love the sound of friends and family talking and laughing around my tables. Nothing compares to that sound, because that’s what love sounds like to me. My birth family and my chosen family making joyous noise together.  My scrapbook of our first summer in this house shows friends and family around the table, obviously my place of love.

Now it is indeed quieter. For the first time it was just the two of us on the Fourth of July. It was certainly not quiet with all the “bombs bursting in air”, but it was quiet compared to other Fourths filled with people. Last summer my brother’s kids and grandkids were with us, lots of noise. Things are changing. The noise has abated somewhat. And that’s a bit of a loss for me to adjust to. I look at my big table and realize how much of my love language involves that space being full of people.

Maybe it hearkens back to being in a family of 6, and meals were noisy sessions. Certainly for me a full table denotes love (as do carbohydrates of any sort on said table). It’s been difficult to watch the numbers diminish by death and time. The quiet is hard to take.

We have a friend who, for many summers, came and camped on our space with us. She hated it, often for good reason. Many times the weather was anything but glorious. We have pictures of us wrapped in layers, sitting around the fire with the smoke hanging solid in the air around us. Yet, we also had a lot of fun. She came back because she was my friend, not because she loved camping. In fact she once told me she understood why we liked camping here – because there are times when we just enjoy being miserable. She’s liked it better now we built a house.

But being miserable, though it happens a lot when camping, isn’t why we love it here. We love it here for the noisy quiet of a shared space. Just like my parents, this home has given us a place to gather our family and friends and celebrate being together, weather notwithstanding. And though there isn’t the regular gatherings with my family, we are still honored to have time with friends and chosen family. That’s what makes this place special.

And God is in this place. Obviously I believe He is in all the places, but for us, this place is special. His grace provided it to us, especially the second lot. He has blessed us with the richness of friends and family to share it with. The beauty of the place – the trees and wild life, the ocean – fill us with peace and still our anxieties. He gave us this space to heal our souls and expand our hearts.

I do come to the beach for its noisy quiet. I come to spend time with family and friends, and I come to learn to live in my own quiet.  Whatever the situation, God has provided us with what we need, and also things wildly beyond what we could ask for or imagine. That makes this a place of blessing for everyone who comes to get away from the city and enjoy a bit of our version of quiet.