I like white noise1. Not for writing. Just in general, particularly when I sleep. I suspect that may have something to do with the gray, metal, oscillating GE fan that was always on my dresser during childhood summers. It wasn't loud, but it was rhythmic, rising and falling as the fan swung from side to side, and soothing in the darkness.
These days I have a big, three-HEPA filter air purifier under the desk that I'm using for the same purpose, long after the Time To Replace The Filters You Nob light has gone into the red. I suspect that I'm using much more electricity than I need to, so I shall soon acquire a SleepMate Electro-Mechanical White Noise Machine. It uses electricity too, but I'm sure that it's more efficient in its use of it because it was designed to generate noise, not filter the air. Besides which, the HEPA filters ocasionally come loose from their moorings, producing a momentary chuff! that disturbs the sound flow as they get sucked back into place. I turn the HEPA filter off when I'm out of the apartment. Back east, the filter stayed on all the time, because its job was to get rid off pollen and the other tiny evil allergens that made my face explode. Out here on the west coast I don't need it for that, so there's no point in having it on for noise when I'm not around.
This afternoon I spent about half an hour on the bed in my usual post-work semimeditative nap-style state of mind, and I left the HEPA filter off. I could hear the noises outside, the cars passing, distant traffic, passers-by on the sidewalk. All of that combined with the scent of cool air flowing through the half-open window behind the blinds and transported me back east, to proper autumn in the Hudson Valley. By letting go of my sense of place, it seemed as though I was back in the house I'd bought with my girlfriend in 2002. Winter was on the way, and soon we'd have a foot of snow on the ground and coziness inside our small house. It helped that the bed I have now is the same one we had then (I got the bed, she got the TV, how did that happen?).
That pleasant dislocation lasted awhile, and when I got back up from the bed, I was refreshed. Sometimes, a nap-style interlude can go on too long, and I wake up worse off than I was before I dozed. But I feel as though I have dipped into a pleasant past, and it has rejuvenated me.
It wasn't all good, back then, but it certainly wasn't all bad, either, and somehow, by turning off the noise that I use to shield myself from the sounds of the world, I was able to access the essence of those good moments, when home was a warm, well-lit, tiny house in the snow.
1Technically, white noise is a random signal with a flat power spectral density. To me, it's the pleasant whooshy sounds made by fans, certain air conditioners, and the shower next to the bedroom late in the morning on a Saturday.
These days I have a big, three-HEPA filter air purifier under the desk that I'm using for the same purpose, long after the Time To Replace The Filters You Nob light has gone into the red. I suspect that I'm using much more electricity than I need to, so I shall soon acquire a SleepMate Electro-Mechanical White Noise Machine. It uses electricity too, but I'm sure that it's more efficient in its use of it because it was designed to generate noise, not filter the air. Besides which, the HEPA filters ocasionally come loose from their moorings, producing a momentary chuff! that disturbs the sound flow as they get sucked back into place. I turn the HEPA filter off when I'm out of the apartment. Back east, the filter stayed on all the time, because its job was to get rid off pollen and the other tiny evil allergens that made my face explode. Out here on the west coast I don't need it for that, so there's no point in having it on for noise when I'm not around.
This afternoon I spent about half an hour on the bed in my usual post-work semimeditative nap-style state of mind, and I left the HEPA filter off. I could hear the noises outside, the cars passing, distant traffic, passers-by on the sidewalk. All of that combined with the scent of cool air flowing through the half-open window behind the blinds and transported me back east, to proper autumn in the Hudson Valley. By letting go of my sense of place, it seemed as though I was back in the house I'd bought with my girlfriend in 2002. Winter was on the way, and soon we'd have a foot of snow on the ground and coziness inside our small house. It helped that the bed I have now is the same one we had then (I got the bed, she got the TV, how did that happen?).
That pleasant dislocation lasted awhile, and when I got back up from the bed, I was refreshed. Sometimes, a nap-style interlude can go on too long, and I wake up worse off than I was before I dozed. But I feel as though I have dipped into a pleasant past, and it has rejuvenated me.
It wasn't all good, back then, but it certainly wasn't all bad, either, and somehow, by turning off the noise that I use to shield myself from the sounds of the world, I was able to access the essence of those good moments, when home was a warm, well-lit, tiny house in the snow.
1Technically, white noise is a random signal with a flat power spectral density. To me, it's the pleasant whooshy sounds made by fans, certain air conditioners, and the shower next to the bedroom late in the morning on a Saturday.
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