You begin to listen. What does a goose’s honk sound
like from a two-foot high perspective anyway? Why is the
neighbor’s fishpond pump glugging like that today, when
yesterday it glugged a bit more softly, less rhythmically?
What drives human beings to seek out (or just endure, when
we have the choice) the frightening booms of fireworks,
crashing decibels of hard rock concerts, the annoying din of
crowded parties in small rooms.
There are no answers. There is listening therapy,
exercises, practice, role-playing, de-sensitisation, speech
therapy, exposure therapy, more.
There is your small child, your little boy, your son,
your adolescent, your teenager, your young man, your college
student, and he is coping, modifying his behavior, learning to
understand his limits, his boundaries, his tolerance. He learns
it and learns when not to even try. When to stay in, stay away,
stay silent. Learns about earplugs, learns to request a dorm
with strict quiet hours, learns how to make jokes about his
being a ‘crotchety old man’ in a twenty-something body.
Everything fades, many things change, but not
everything.
You stay inside with him, even when he’s 19 and 21,
on the Fourth of July, the rest of the family having lugged
chairs to the high school field behind your house, because
you don’t care that much about fireworks, and while your
boy is huddled in the basement, the television turned up
loud on Jurassic Park, his favorite movie (no, even you can’t
explain the dinosaur roars and why they don’t bother him),
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