In-Class Imitation assignment

I know I just posted yesterday but I wrote a REALLY short nonfiction piece in class today. I think it took me all of 25 minutes for this little rough draft. It might turn into something more, but I thought I'd post it anyways just to provide some light reading. We were supposed to be imitating an essay we read in class called "Rain" by Kathleen Norris. We actually got to leave class early to go out into the "natural world" to write. Well, I was struck by all the noises that I listen to. So here it is. Enjoy.

"Noise"

Until I moved to Poughkeepsie, NY to start college at Marist, I had not known the noises that would from then on fill my ears with a constant buzz. These noises would be too raucous, too earsplitting, too early in the morning, too late at night.

   

 I did not know that these noises would be a constant signal of ambulances wailing down that traffic light laden stretch of Route 9. That they would be the common, throaty snarl of a loaded Subaru WRX, its driver yearning for a deserving challenger to race. 

I did not know that the shrill train whistle penetrating the thick glass of my dorm room windows would signal early and late arrivals from Upstate or from the City. The wheels clacking along the rails, the whistle spiraling through the still, cold air to herald that it was time for my eyelids to appropriately snap open. In time, I would take this train many times to Rochester, just to see him. I’d hear the train from his dorm room; think of the whistle that connected 300 miles.

I did not know the sound of fragile, thin heels clomping up and down the stairs, followed by harsh laughter, the slam of doors. The sound of a late night microwave whirring and beeping. I’d hear the soft rustle of my sheets as I stirred, trying to fall back asleep in the sudden silence. Just as soon as the noises started, they stopped. 

I did not know the quiet sound of the rain upon the roof, the harsh wind that howled and ripped at my clothes when I would step outside first thing in the morning, the Hudson is disarray with its waters choppy as an ocean. I had never known wind as violent as Poughkeepsie wind.

I did not know this white noise. 

Once when I was home, my aunt asked me how I liked being in my dorm room. “I fall asleep to the sounds of the train,” I replied. “Poughkeepsie’s lullaby,” she said.