The Sound Of An Empty House
There are a lot of things that make a house home. There's the look of the place. There's our stuff, in its familiar arrangement. There are familiar smells, the ones you keep coming back to - even the ones that are suspiciously like "oh God, the cat's protesting the oppressive nature of the litterbox again" - that come together to make the mental picture that instantly, irrevocably says "home".
Sound's a big part of that, too. An area that we're familiar with makes familiar sounds. We know how long a sound takes to echo and die there, how loud you have to yell to call someone in the next room, how long a single sound is supposed to live down to the nanosecond.
Of course, changing things changes how long sound bounces around even a medium-sized living room. Move a piece of furniture, add a bookshelf there - even tiny changes are changes, and our gut recognizes them even if our brain doesn't. It takes a while to settle back down when the acoustic map of a long-familiar place changes while we wait for our hindbrains to decide that yes, this is still the safe zone it used to be before the curio cabinet went four feet to the left and the dining room table lost a leaf. No doubt this knack was of tremendous use to our ancestors, who could use it to notice that a large short-faced bear had moved into the cave and react accordingly.
All of which would have remained entirely academic (except possibly for my interest in short-faced bears) if we weren't getting our carpet replaced. Which meant moving all the furniture out of the big living room/dining room. While Melinda was out of town for work. Which meant that I came home to a house that looked different - the carpets had been taken up but the new floors not yet put down, that smelled different (like I said, the, uh, carpets had been taken up), where none of the pieces were in their familiar places, and that most of all, sounded different. Carpet gone, furniture moved, and the first floor was suddenly an echo chamber. The clatter of ice cubes into a glass rattled around and around; a closed door was thunderous. The cats wandered counterclockwise and yowled confusion - why was the floor hard? Where had their favorite perches gone? What was happening?
And every sound on the first floor of the house was just wrong, and my lizard brain screamed "Predator! Watch out!" every time I made a noise. I found myself tiptoeing around, gently moving dishes, dealing in hush and quiet to keep from involuntarily jumping out of my skin.
All of which is academic, of course. In a couple of days the furniture will be back. I'll have gotten the new arrangement wired in as "home". And the cats, walnut-brained adorable monsters that they are, will forget.
But the reminder that even small changes can take a place that's known intimately and make it uncanny and strange, well, that's worth remembering. And not just because a family of short-faced cave bears might be moving in down the block.
Sound's a big part of that, too. An area that we're familiar with makes familiar sounds. We know how long a sound takes to echo and die there, how loud you have to yell to call someone in the next room, how long a single sound is supposed to live down to the nanosecond.
Of course, changing things changes how long sound bounces around even a medium-sized living room. Move a piece of furniture, add a bookshelf there - even tiny changes are changes, and our gut recognizes them even if our brain doesn't. It takes a while to settle back down when the acoustic map of a long-familiar place changes while we wait for our hindbrains to decide that yes, this is still the safe zone it used to be before the curio cabinet went four feet to the left and the dining room table lost a leaf. No doubt this knack was of tremendous use to our ancestors, who could use it to notice that a large short-faced bear had moved into the cave and react accordingly.
All of which would have remained entirely academic (except possibly for my interest in short-faced bears) if we weren't getting our carpet replaced. Which meant moving all the furniture out of the big living room/dining room. While Melinda was out of town for work. Which meant that I came home to a house that looked different - the carpets had been taken up but the new floors not yet put down, that smelled different (like I said, the, uh, carpets had been taken up), where none of the pieces were in their familiar places, and that most of all, sounded different. Carpet gone, furniture moved, and the first floor was suddenly an echo chamber. The clatter of ice cubes into a glass rattled around and around; a closed door was thunderous. The cats wandered counterclockwise and yowled confusion - why was the floor hard? Where had their favorite perches gone? What was happening?
And every sound on the first floor of the house was just wrong, and my lizard brain screamed "Predator! Watch out!" every time I made a noise. I found myself tiptoeing around, gently moving dishes, dealing in hush and quiet to keep from involuntarily jumping out of my skin.
All of which is academic, of course. In a couple of days the furniture will be back. I'll have gotten the new arrangement wired in as "home". And the cats, walnut-brained adorable monsters that they are, will forget.
But the reminder that even small changes can take a place that's known intimately and make it uncanny and strange, well, that's worth remembering. And not just because a family of short-faced cave bears might be moving in down the block.
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