Fort Tilden

September 7, 2009

Monday, Labor Day, around 3pm

Overcast skies and breezy, low 70s

Fort Tilden Beach

On the Atlantic Ocean

Queens, New York

The surf continuously crashes on the shore.

Though the waves at times sound large, making an audible clap as they crest and then make contact with the sea floor and shore, there is mostly a continuous hush of sound.

White noise.

In the far distance, a commercial jetliner flies overhead.

The murmur of a passing conversation and barely audible footsteps. Bare feet on soft sand.

Persistent wind fills my ear canal.

Another plane. The sound of its engines seems to reverberate off the arced dome of the earth, continuing to arrive in my ears from various angles though the plane travels in a straight line itself.

More ocean.

Seagulls send forth calls, which are often not returned.

Rustling of a seagull rummaging in dried plant matter. It picks it up in its beak and shakes is back and forth before setting it down and lazily pecking.

Empty aluminum beer cans are encased in a plastic bag attached to a man’s hip. As he walks slowly past me, the cans bump into each other, creating a sort of slow, somehow forlorn, tune.

End of summer.

A low-flying helicopter and an equally low-flying prop plane pass from left to right simultaneously.

Seagulls fighting. Constant exhale produces a call that demands.

Another prop plane—this one right to left.

A man calls out from within the roar of the sea. His words are not discernable.

I am increasingly aware of the sounds of my own documentation. Pencil on paper dragging left to right and down the length of the page. I brush off sand with my hand. If I don’t hold it down, this page will flap wildly in the breeze.

Beer shifting within its aluminum can as I take another sip, and wait.

The constancy of the ocean sound is unusually steady and unwavering for this city.

Seagull crows: “Ah, Ah.”

“Hey loner.” My friend Juan greets me as he passes right to left.

“Are you recording?” asks Adrienne.

I hear myself respond.

A plane behind me and to the right.

Though it is a loud—or relatively full—soundscape here, it seems peaceful and quiet. Meditative. Mostly this is due to the relative lack of man-made sound. Mother Nature seems to be able to appropriately design sonic environments that compliment physical landscapes in a manner that humans have not yet mastered.

The breeze blows the skirt of my white dress around, but it does not make a sound. It does, however, remain within my field of vision persistently as I look down to write.

There are not many people passing by at this point on the shore. Further to the left, on an earlier walk, I overheard many snippets of conversation. Heard the sounds of a football scrimmage, and the distorted rock music being brought forth by a cheap receiver airing a 500 best song countdown. They were in the top 60s.

But I can’t hear any of that from where I now sit.

Just the waves and the wind,

for the most part.

Velcro reluctantly releasing its grasp on itself as I procure my camera from its case.

A very distant plane nears.

My friends huddle at our beach perch a mere 50 feet away or so, but their voices do not carry.

Approaching footsteps of two people—a young man and woman. She is giggling profusely; then she says: “I can’t stop laughing.”

They pass behind me and stop. I hear their voices, but not the particularities of their words. His voice is quite deep, and hers projects.

They circle me and walk back the way from which they came.

I wait.

I close my eyes and sit back. The soundscape does not waver much at all.

Sandals passing on the sand.

A faraway plane engine with a round sound.

It seems almost impossible, but I hear three boat engines roaring off in the distance. Briefly.

The sound is eaten by the sea.