Current Issue: Spring/Summer 2011

I Write With Noise  
Andreana Binder

By the time I was old enough to realize I wanted (or needed) to write, the whole dynamic of my family changed. Though my parents worked retail jobs (and sometimes paper routes at night) I seemed to see them more after their jewelry store closed.

If my parents were home, they were always engaged in dialogue. My dad, the more dramatic of the two, could critically analyze just about anything on television, or in reality. The consistency of cake batter, the potholes outside of the apartments we lived in, the authenticity of special effects in science fiction movies. To compliment these assessments was a voice that carried through all our thin apartment walls and down the sidewalk. So just about every comment he ever made, you met twice by ricochet of sound waves. My mom always thought it was entertaining, and somehow, with her strong yet sweet demeanor always managed to humor his questions about reruns, fast food commercials and the trivial, daily complaints about customers. Dialogue was always so important to my parents. When the kids weren’t fighting, when my parents weren’t discussing laundry, the television filled that brief void with noise.

I was left home a lot with my little brother and sister—who being close in age always fought. They fought about everything—stuffed animals, crackers, spoons. I figured out quickly that buying each kid the same happy meal toy eliminated some of that jealousy—but not for long. If one child seemed more interested in their toy than the other did—that was cause for argument, followed by swift kicking and face scratching. In the background, the television was always on.

Occasionally we went without electricity, so my parents would talk even more to fill that silence. We would all pile into the living room on those nights to either catch the wind outside through the patio door, or to huddle together for warmth on a shared cot. My mom would arrange candles in front of me to finish what homework I still had if the daylight had passed. But whether huddled together, or tucked into our beds, I always knew that if I woke up in the middle of the night, my dad would be sitting there watching television. He hardly slept at night and as a kid I used that to my advantage. I felt a great comfort knowing he’d be sitting there, half awake. Not only did I feel safe, but I knew if I woke up and suggested a donut, he’d drive me right over to Shipley’s. We’d each get our own donut, but we always shared the milk. Growing up there was always life and sound surrounding me.

When I got to be a teenager, and my writing became furious, angst-filled, lovesick—I could always expect a break in thought by the sound of my dad’s voice booming, “BAD ACTING!” or “Son of a BITCH!”. My dad always seemed to have a keen ear and eye for quality acting and singing. He used to sing in a band when he was in high school. Even with my Walkman on, I could hear my mom and dad’s strong “Mm.” That always meant they were talking about or watching something shameful. And if it was really shameful and poorly done, they’d say that firm “Mm” three times in a row, alternating pitch like, “Mm, mmm, MM.”

In college I started finding inspiration in coffee shops. In coffee shops, you see, no kids are running in on you as you’re trying to write an intense poem about what it might feel like to have sex. Without mom and dad in the next room, I didn’t feel guilty about writing a furious poem about the injustice I felt having to babysit all the time. I had privacy—but I also had noise. The clinking of spoons against ceramic cups, the white noise chatter of people at other tables—the occasional “philosophical” conversation between two Converse wearing twenty-something’s—I had life around me—movement, coffee-scented, sometimes cheap perfume-scented—I had solitude of mind, but I was never really alone. I was still in the company of life and its many comforting sounds.

When I moved into my first apartment by myself, I thought I’d really done the right thing for my craft. Writers are supposed to embrace solitude to write (right?). If was going to be taken seriously as a writer, I needed the proper accommodations: coffee, wine, one candle, popcorn, cigarettes, chicken pot pie, a pen, paper of some sort and my solitude. I had very little furniture and just enough dishes incase two of my friends decided to stop by for dinner.

The day I moved in, the movers shuffled around while my parents barely walked inside to see what my apartment looked like—they were all gone within 30 minutes. It was a new sort of quiet time I’d never really experienced before. No one would be calling after me to bring them the remote control (when they were in the same room where the remote control was located). No one would be unlocking my bedroom door without knocking—this space was mine, and mine alone. I took a deep breath, smiled and unpacked. I hung the clothes in the closet, unwrapped the cellophane from my bar of soap, placed the shampoo in the shower and put the dishes away in the cabinet. I had planned, saved and fantasized about all the great things I’d accomplish by having my own place—all the brilliant poems I’d write, all the sex I’d have. I couldn’t afford a television and at that point I didn’t care to have one. I refused it. To have my solitude was what it meant to be an adult and to be a true writer. Television was a part of my old life. In my new writer’s life, I needed books to tell me stories, not reruns of M.A.S.H. The news was published in the newspapers to read. At that moment, I had in my possession what was good for me.

But after the last pair of shoes was put away in the closet, I looked around my apartment and felt the grand silence. I remember my eyebrows moving slowly in confusion. I was in a silent box of white sheetrock. I felt stunned. I sat on the floor to write about this thick, creepy silence in this new place with no pictures on the walls. I didn’t get further than a few lines before I called my mom. My new grocery list read:

vitamins

broccoli

carrots

Lysol

used TV

Over the years I found that some of my best writing came from booming headphones and noisy coffee shops—even sometimes from an unoccupied room at my folks’. When I’m home, with or without music, I always turn back to the television—that soothing white noise. That base of my childhood, a warm security blanket between my ears.

 

Andreana Binderteaches Composition and Creative Writing at Houston Community College and Lone Star College-CyFair. She has been published in Temenos and Fawlt Magazine. A dance instructor at Del Espadin Flamenco & Spanish Dance Academy, she enjoys painting and watching movies with her black dog, Murdock.