The quiet life we had in La Thebauderie was quite peaceful. An occasional car came in or out, a tractor in a neighboring field, and cows mooing in the distance were about all that broke the silence.

Rural Normandie was quite a change from our condo on Harbour Pointe Boulevard in Mukilteo, WA. Our condo faced the busy road with the ever-present sound of cars going by in both directions on the two lane road.

Thankfully by about 9-10pm the traffic died down so our sleep was not often interrupted. After a few weeks you tend to block out the noise of the cars, until a loud motorcycle speeds by, or a large, diesel pick-up down sifts. My conditioned response, after learning a bit of French was: Je déteste ça!

The Pearl, where we now live, is quiet most of the time, only disrupted by a garbage truck, a siren, or the loud yellow Corvette that has moved into our building – Je déteste ça! We learn to adapt to a lot of noise that comes our way. We relegate it to a place in our brain where it does not intrude on our conscience thinking.

When considering our lives as a whole we all live on a “busy street.” The traffic of life is a persistent noise that we learn to tolerate. Yet occasionally something happens – a frustration, a disagreement, fear – and the calm is broken. It can take some time to reclaim the conditional calm.

The daily news, in this day of 24/7, is a busy road. Tricia asks, “did you read the news?” “Yes, same old stuff, all bad.” For the most part the awful news is just a background roar from the street, but then, something happens that shocks us – Je déteste ça!

These days it is hard to push the roar of news and events to the background, it seems everyday is loud and obnoxious, a steady, busy road, just a bit louder. Sadly, these days it seems the extra loud noises are more frequent and disturbing, making it a challenge to get back to some semblance of calm.

People talk about wanting a quiet, idyllic life like we had in Normandie. The reality is that in the world, with friends, family, and relationships we all live on a busy street. To stay healthy we must adapt and accept that you/we do not live in quiet Normandie, no we live on a Harbour Pointe like street, and there is plenty of background stuff going on, so we should adapt and accept. Then when a loud car goes by – some irritation, an insensitive person, confusion, criticism – we should learn, I must learn, to say, “Je détese ça!” Acknowledge that it is out of the norm and move on. Healthy again with the world and personal relationships – BUT damn hard to do. Je déteste ça!