Sounds of Solo

The solo experience over the weekend was oddly familiar to me. When I was not reading Refuge, I felt the same boredom and impatience that I have experienced on previous solos. While solo brings feelings of serenity to some, I find that I have a hard time spending that much in my own head. It was difficult for me to voluntarily isolate myself for that amount of time, especially knowing that both my family and Ellie (who also camped in my backyard) were merely five-minute walks away in either direction. In an attempt to distract myself from the unbearable boredom, I began to observe my surroundings. After I tired of watching the trees rustle in the wind and chipmunks scurry into tiny holes, I tuned into the noises around me – and, subconsciously, my boredom faded into fascination.

It was a naïve assumption of mine to go into solo thinking I could be surrounded only by natural ambiance and the occasional footsteps from Ellie. Though I was deep enough into the woods where I could hardly see the houses around me, I found that it is impossible to escape the suburbia entirely. The natural ambiance was still there – calls from various inhabitants of the woods that went far into the night – but was frequently interrupted by a shrill squeal of the young girl next door, and constantly undermined by cars passing or lawnmowers in the distance. Though I am fortunate enough to have access to abundant natural spaces, it is difficult if not impossible to find space that is exclusively nature. Our influence seems to find itself everywhere.

As day faded into dusk and then night, the sounds of the human world faded with it. Lawnmowers halted just as the sun began to set, and cars became far in between. Even the little girl next door relented as the last of the light fell under the horizon and disappeared from the sky. And though my eyes had adjusted to the darkness as best they could, I found myself relying more and more on noise to gauge my surroundings. It was somewhat unsettling as my fire became coals and I was left almost blind, but I again tuned into the sound around me and found it easier to listen than before.

Leopard frogs from the nearby pond chattered all night. I could pick out three distinct calls at first, each one a different tone than the other, though soon the entire pond seemed to erupt into a rippling ensemble. Sometimes their calls would die down, but never more than five minutes would pass before they started up again. At one point I heard a barred owl in the distance, and its distinct call of eight notes or so caused the entire pond to fall silent for the longest it had been all night. I heard bees buzzing from time to time, which briefly made me wonder if I had set up my hammock close to a hive; thankfully, I had not. But the loudest voice of all didn’t come from the pond – a woodpecker hammered away from time to time all night, startling me every time with its piercing series of drums. The night was the first time I heard the woodpecker; I wondered if it was active during the day too, but drowned out by the sounds of the human world.