Noise

How do people in construction deal with all the noise? I don’t feel so bad for the guy running the machine because he knows when he will start and stop and he gets the adrenaline rush of using a dangerous piece of equipment near his fragile human body. It’s the guys next to him, holding the “SLOW” sign or waiting to hand him the next piece of wood to cut that I think it’s worse for. They are SO CLOSE to the noise without being in control of it.

My dad worked in construction for many years. He was a strong, able man, that gave his body, his youth, and his hearing to the profession. And in living that hard life, he died younger than many. I wish I had ask him what it’s like to be making so much noise all day long. Although, I couldn’t have called him on the phone. I mean, I could, and I did, but with the hearing loss, talking was not the easiest way to communicate. I suppose I should have written. I do fancy myself a writer after all. And I am a fast typer. But my dad never learned to type. He typed out a message once and my step-mom said it took him 30 minutes to get three sentences. We never found our stride, our way to exchange thoughts or ideas or feelings or information. I think we just guessed about each other a lot, and took action accordingly. It wasn’t because we didn’t care, because we did. We just didn’t know how to change. We didn’t know what questions to ask. We didn’t want to screw up what we had, maybe, and didn’t want to take risks to make it better.

I understand at this moment what “there’s a lump in my throat” means. I have that. And I’m so happy that someone figured out how to describe that physical response to an emotional situation. I’m glad that even though it’s a cliche thing to say, that because it is we know that it is a feeling that other humans feel and we are not alone when we have felt it. Like how we wonder sometimes if green to one person is the same as green to another person. We don’t need to wonder with the “lump in my throat” situation. Life has enough mysteries—let’s occasionally celebrate one we’ve already figured out and cataloged.