It's oh so quiet...

When I moved back to New Orleans in November 2005, it was a very different place than the one I evacuated in August. A lot of things were missing, and I mean this in every way possible. Basic services were hit or miss, depending on where you lived, or nonexistent in some places. Bodies were still being discovered, thousands of people couldn't return home or had no home to return to. Trash collection and mail service weren't necessarily priorities. Working at Loyola made some things easier; we were preparing for students to come back in January and needed to be ready. But off campus everything was harder to do and more frustrating than it should be.

It's interesting what you notice in the absence of most things. For me, one of the most noticeable was the deafening silence of no streetcar. I lived about five blocks off of St. Charles Avenue, which is still close enough to hear the streetcar and avenue traffic. There was nothing. New Orleans was silent, something I never thought possible. I missed the noise. It wasn't, at least to me, a disruptive noise, but lulling. I always felt right with the world when I could hear the streetcar ding along and the traffic move around St. Charles. It was soothing. It was home.

I don't share this to be morbid or stir up any difficult feelings for those who were there before, during, and after. I recently finished Sarah M. Broom's beautifully tragic memoir The Yellow House. I highly recommend the book if you haven't already read it. I wasn't prepared for the feelings I had reading Broom's story. It made me think about how I define home and the things that create a sense of place, like the sound of a streetcar, and what happens when that thing is gone. I finished the book in my yet to be completely unpacked condo in almost deafening silence.

Unlike the lack I felt when there was no streetcar noise, I find myself reveling in the quiet of my neighborhood. In my new place, I'm probably the same distance I was from the streetcar line to the main road, and yet I hear nothing. No traffic noises, no trucks (except the garbage truck), no buses, no dudes speeding down the highway at 2 am for no apparent reason (or maybe they have a very specific reason, but I don't need to know it). I've slept better sine moving in than I have in my last two apartments. It could be the exhaustion of moving, but I don't think so. I occasionally hear my upstairs neighbor moving around, and sometimes the dog next store barks. But that's it. I've moved onto a quiet street in a quiet neighborhood tucked behind a major highway, and I don't know what to do with myself.

When I was house hunting, I remember thinking how funny it was that some listings would talk at length about the quiet. In my head I was thinking, "shouldn't they be trying to sell my on their poor choice in carpeting rather than the silence?" I recall one that said something like "you won't even know you have neighbors!" There were lots of exclamation marks in that statement. It seemed so odd and completely opposite of the idea of community. I get it, no one wants to live below a person who clomps around all the time or throws loud parties (I'm looking at you old upstairs neighbors), but this seemed so extreme. I want to know my neighbors. I don't want to know what they're having for dinner or if someone forgot to pick up milk from the store, but I want to know they exist and maybe meet their dogs. Friendships form because of physical proximity, familiarity, and similarity. Being friends, or at least friendly, with my neighbors feels like a thing I should do.

And I have met some of my neighbors. Before I officially moved in I met Mr. B and Jessie's mom (Jessie is a dog). Mr. B reminds me of older men of a certain age in New Orleans who call everybody "baby" and are the biggest gossips, but also super nice and helpful. Both he and Jessie's mom live in the building next door and have lived here over 15 years. In my building, I've met Ginger's dad (another dog), across the hall guy who has the same ceramic Christmas tree as my parents (he told them as they all walked up the stairs together), upstairs neighbor who gets up at 4:30 am, and other upstairs neighbor who was legit eating Trader Joe's ice cream out of the carton for lunch while carrying on a conversation with Ginger's dad (she may be my new lunch hero). Everyone has been very welcoming and excited that I'm living in their community. But they're all insanely quiet. Even the dogs.

I'm hyper aware of my own volume; does the lady who lives below me think I have a tiny horse when Keely gallops through the house? Is my music too loud? Did everyone hate it when I scraped ice off my car on Wednesday (it sounded like I was killing something it was so quiet)? Can they all hear me watching Daria and are silently judging me?

Moving is a process. Settling in takes a long time, between routine changes, new arrangements, and getting everything "right." I never thought one of the things I'd have to get used to was quiet. I'm not complaining, but this is currently the most unexpected aspect of my move.