As The Storm Blows On, Out Of Control, Deep In Her Heart, The Thunder Rolls

--"The Thunder Rolls", Garth Brooks

Ever since moving to Long Beach, I've had trouble with watching television in my room. As I've explained before, watching tv in my room has always been a time-honored routine of mine. For the better part of twenty years, I would tune it into ESPN or some other non-intrusive show, and let the ambient noise soothe me into falling asleep. Well, that just isn't possible here with the way my cable box breaks down with regularity. Most of the time I can't even count on it to turn on, let alone change it to the channel that I thought I needed to sleep. Indeed, for the last six months, I've had to make due without it when I'm trying to fall asleep.

What I've been doing instead is listen to those nature CD's people like to employ. I'm talking about those rather soothing sounds of wind blowing through wind chimes, rivers gently bubbling, or the surf crashing lightly into shore. I've always thought one day I would check them out as an alternative to leaving the TV on in sleep mode, but it has only become a necessity in the last few months. Starting with a set of 2 cd's of the surf crashing into shore in Hawaii, I've made leaving the stereo playing me to sleep a nightly habit. While I haven't bought too many of them, it's helped quite a bit with my not being able to relax my mind long enough to succumb to slumber. In fact, it's gotten so that I think I should have been doing this all along rather than trained my mind to only fall asleep to Sportscenter or some other show. It's far more easier to fall asleep to waves crashing or the sound of distant wind chimes than some guy's voice droning off in a meek whisper. I daresay when taken measure against the speed with which I fell asleep to the tv before, I'm drifting away a half-hour quicker with the CD's--if not quicker. I can definitely say I'm getting better quality rest now than I did before.

That is until I bought my most recent nature sounds CD.

Under a friend's suggestion (ahem) and due to the fact that I've always thought a rain CD would work the best for me, I bought a soundtrack of about a hundred minutes of rain falling on a rooftop called Suburban Thunder. I thought it was going to be quiet like the other CD's. Also, I thought that was rain was kind of soothing, quiet even.

Boy, was I wrong.

The track starts off fine. It starts off with a hushed whisper of rain falling on a rooftop. The thunder, when it does hit, registers a medium-level crackle. The first time I listened to it, I thought I could get used to this CD and this isn't so bad. There's something about rain falling that reminds me of when I was a kid. It reminds me of afternoons where the weather was too bad to play outside, but not bad enough to fall asleep too. The patter of water hitting the gutters and sliding down the drain had always been a constant companion during those afternoons where I would just nap beneath the sounds of the subdued storm outside. All in all, the CD starts off as very soothing.

It's when it hits the thirty minute mark that all hell breaks loose. There is a crash of thunder that goes on for so long and hits so loudly that it woke me out of my sleep. Not only that but, because it emulates the sound of pounding on the walls, scared me half to death that first night and every subsequent night I've listened to it. It's funny, I never fully understood Lucy's terror at the sound of thunder, but I get it now. The reason it makes more sense is because, like her, I even know the thunder is coming in the duration of the CD. I even know the exact time it starts, and yet it still makes my heart leap each and every time. There's something instinctual, almost primal, at my recoiling at something so basic. No naturally-made sound should be that loud or last that long. It really does feel like some other sinister force at work here.

Now I'm rethinking my whole stance at falling asleep to nature idea. If all future tracks turn on a dime so quickly to be so menacing, then I don't want to risk my comfortable sleep to chance. I mean--what's next? Listening to hurricane-force winds destroying peoples' homes or maybe a nice 7.1 earthquake working its way through the speakers. No thank you. LOL

Yours Swimmingly,
mojo shivers