To Be Heard

I have these memories from childhood.

I had a cassette tape—a best-of compilation from a local morning disc jockey who made prank phone calls and sang parodies of popular music. The whole family liked him, and so, one afternoon, when I played with wrestling figures downstairs, I played the cassette at full volume from the little stereo there. I imagined my parents hearing the music and getting a chuckle—that even in separate parts of the house, doing separate things we might all be laughing along to the same soundtrack in the background.

A minute or two after I’d cranked up the sound, I heard the weight of my father’s footsteps on the stairs and I remember smiling when he opened the door, not necessarily thinking he’d come down for a better listen, but that for whatever he’d come to get, he’d laugh along or at least shake his head at the tape I was well on my way to wearing out.

Dad wasn’t unkind in that instance, but made it clear he’d only come to turn down the stereo, both because I was going to hurt my ears and because playing the tape so loud was an annoyance to the rest of the house.

I recall another time, in bed on a summer night. I had a pet noise that I’d make, a combination of a high-pitched hum and rolling my tongue, that I relished because I didn’t know of anyone else making quite that sound, and because it was undeniably a weird sound to make. I lay in bed shortly after we’d all gone to bed and made my noise, thinking it might be a subject of amusement for everyone for its randomness, for its absurdity. I don’t know that I had an end game in mind, but I usually slept well at that point in life—probably six, seven, or eight years old—and I imagine I would have stopped after a minute or two.

I don’t remember if it were my mother or father who came to my door that time, but I remember that then, too, they weren’t unkind, only clear—that I was keeping everyone up and I should go to sleep.

These aren’t particularly powerful, impactful memories that I think of as having shaped me, and there were likely as not a dozen more instances a lot of like them of making too much noise with good intentions, and getting corrected. But then, I was also relatively quiet kid—shy in social situations, usually not all that eager to speak up in class, and quiet at home a good bit of the time, too, if only because most of my favorite pastimes—writing, drawing, reading, even playing the Nintendo—didn’t involve making much noise besides putting on some music in the background.

So I reflect on those times when I did try to be heard, because I thought I had something worth sharing, something to entertain or amuse. And I wonder if that’s the essence of so much of my life to follow. Writing and publishing. Post blog entries. Something as simple as sharing a link on social media, because it feels as though that addition might add something of value to the infinite expanse of the Internet.

I’ve never been sure if what I had to share would land right. If I was making noise in the right way, about the right thing, at the right time. But I suppose there’s a part of me that’s wanted to make some noise my whole life.