Do You Hear That?
When I first moved to West Virginia in October 2014, I was living in my camper out on the farm. Shortly after my arrival, I began to notice a low humming sound every night when I went to bed. At first, I thought perhaps something was wrong with some mechanism in the camper itself. Then I thought perhaps the furnace in the house was so loud I was hearing it. I ruled both theories out when I discovered it was continuous, not cyclical.
The sound was similar to a prop plane running its engines about a half mile away. Or a diesel tractor trailer idling down the road. I asked my aunt and she gave me that “you’re kooky” look I always got when I said something…ok, well, pretty much whenever I spoke to her. She didn’t hear anything, she said. “It’s all in your head.”
I may have believed that because I do have tinnitus…that high pitched whine I have from too many rock concerts and running machinery without hearing protection. This wasn’t high pitched though. It was low, droning, monotonous, maddening. When I learned they were doing deep drilling on the hill about two ridges over from the farm, I thought that was my answer. But I heard it other places as well. So that wasn’t it.
I didn’t notice it so much when I lived up at the river. There was river and train traffic and highways on both the West Virginia and the Ohio side. And, I didn’t hear it in Colorado. Just here. In the country. I don’t remember ever hearing it growing up. After a while, I became pretty accustomed to it. If I did notice it bothering me, there is an app on my iPad that plays white noise or nature sounds and I just turned it on and drowned it out. I do sleep with earplugs but that’s really only good for higher frequency sound. They only served to dampen the ambient noise and accentuate the low pitched frequencies.
A few months ago, Mr. FixIt was reading beside me and I put my iPad down and said, “Do you hear that???” He said, “Yeah…that low pitched humming noise? What IS that???” Finally!!! Corroboration! We searched the house. We went outside. We could not identify a source. It bugged us to no end. It seems to be louder on some nights than on others. Sometimes I don’t notice it. Last night it sounded like a plane getting ready for takeoff on the pool deck out back. Oy!
I finally turned to the internet for an answer and came up with this article.
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/nature/have-you-heard-the-hum-mystery-of-earths-low-droning-noise-could-now-be-solved-10182111.html
Apparently, this is a phenomenon that has plagued certain people who can hear this low droning noise and others can’t. I’m glad to know there is some explanation for it. We are hearing the earth…vibrating. It gives me some comfort to know I am not alone and I’m not crazy, but it’s still pretty maddening. How about you all? Do you hear “the hum” where you are? ❤️
“when the doors to the street are closed and the sound of grinding fades; when people rise up at the sound of birds, but all their songs grow faint;” Ecclesiastes 12:4 NIV