Sounds of silence

I got the mower back just before the 4th. The hardware store fixed the carburetor and then went ahead and was good enough to do a full tune-up, sharpen the blade and polish the thing for another 30 bucks.

I didn't argue, but I didn't order it, either.

I spent most of the holiday mowing the lawn, listening to old Beatles records on my iPod and waiting for the knee-high grass to choke the mower to a stop, but it didn't happen. I got through in just five hours, which was about normal, even when the grass isn't deep and full of terrors.

I hadn't ordered the tune up or the sharpened blade for 30 bucks, but I had sure as hell needed it. 

I was glad to get it done. For the last couple of weeks, I'd been trimming bushes, picking up debris and cutting back the honeysuckle vine strangling some as yet to be identified fruit tree out back (It looks kind of like an Asian pear, but I refuse to actually eat one).

The mowing was a relief. Without it, I doubt anyone would have even given the place even a second look --not that people are showing up much. I'm still hoping for the woman in that beater Honda to come back, possibly with her meth-making, hillbilly boyfriend or collection of dangerous pitbulls.

I'm not picky, but nobody has come by.

After the mowing, the showering and conscious re-hydrating, we cooked out on the patio. I'm getting better at grilling. The chicken turned out a little dry, but not charred like last month's steaks.

My girlfriend and I, we sat in chairs, read for a while and just soaked in the quiet.

That's something Cavendar Drive has going for it: quiet.

It's not a perfect quiet. There are always the birds, the frogs and the crickets. Sometimes there are other things I'm not well-versed enough to identify --probably velociraptors, mutant rabbits, maybe unicorns or werewolf Republicans. In the distance, you can hear the road. Every now and again, a plane flies too low on its way to the airport. In the summer, we have mowers chewing yards, chainsaws whining as they slice through dead wood. In the fall, it's the far away report of hunting rifles echoing from high up in the hills somewhere.

That sound in particular reminds me of home. It reminds me of damp, misty autumn in Pearisburg, Virginia and being told to go outside because I'd become a pain-in-the-ass some Saturday morning.

I was regularly a pain-in-the-ass.

As I boy, I remembered wondering about who was up in those hills and what they were hunting. Either way or on either side, I was glad I wasn't up there. In the same way that they say golf is a good walk spoiled, hunting has never appealed to me either.

The quiet here was something I had to get used to. Before moving to Pinch, I'd grown accustom to city noise --or Charleston's version of it, which is not like the noise of an actual city (We're more of a good sized town). I'd gotten used to hearing the neighbor's television or the stray argument. I'd been painfully aware of the disturbances in my own home --did I snore too loud? If I could hear them, could they hear me?

I haven't had to worry about noise out in the semi-country. I close the door, close the window and the inside of the house is as quiet as a tomb. I can play my stereo as loud as I want and nobody is going to care --of course, I just have the iPod and a dinky MP3 player docking station. I don't even have a record player.

There's something to be said for peace and quiet. 

Sometimes I wonder how I'll adapt to living in the city again, if I'll miss all this bucolic bliss and rural peace and quiet --and then I remember the damned lawn.