The Music of Home
All homes have a unique soundtrack. You can’t ask Spotify or Sirius XM to play it, but you know it by heart. It’s the heater kicking in on a chilly night, the creaky floorboard in the hallway, or the steady ticktock of the kitchen clock. Those sounds wrap around us and quietly say, “You’re home.”
Ask your friends sometime — they’ll each have a favorite sound of home tucked away in their memories.
My friend Bev fondly reminisces about her childhood days and the clatter of forks and plates around the dinner table, her parents and three brothers laughing and teasing each other. She smiles when she remembers the jingle of her dad dropping change into his coin dish at the end of the day. “Even now,” she told me, “if I hear coins rattling, I can almost see Dad emptying his pockets.”
Her mom, a native Floridian, shared that when she hears a group of women softly talking and laughing, she’s carried right back to her childhood. She remembers lying in bed, listening to her mother and aunts sitting on the screened-in porch below. Their gentle Southern voices and laughter would drift up to her window and lull her to sleep.
Safety and contentment — that’s the music of home.
Just like a song can take you back to a moment in time, the everyday sounds of a house can stir powerful memories, too. Rain pounding on the roof. Wind whistling through the trees. The hum of the washing machine. The crackle of a fire in the fireplace. These are the sounds of the rhythm of our lives. They’re so ordinary we barely notice them — until we move somewhere new and realize something’s missing.
On a recent trip to Missouri, a longtime friend who stayed in the same hotel complained about the noisy heater turning on and off all night, keeping her awake. I couldn’t help thinking if that same sound came from her own heater at home, she’d probably find it comforting. It’s peculiar how the same noises that soothe us at home can be an annoyance somewhere else.
When we move, we pack boxes full of dishes, clothing, towels, and mementos — but we also load up something intangible: the sounds of our old home.
Every new place starts out a little too quiet. Before long though, it develops its own rhythm. The slam of the screen door. The hum of the refrigerator. The whistle of the tea kettle. All those sounds weave together into a melody that tells you, you belong here now.
As the years go by, our home’s soundtrack changes. The giggles of kids playing fade into the rustle of turning pages of a good book. The bubbling pot of soup on the stove becomes the soft beep of a microwave. Every stage of life has its own soundtrack — and even the quiet moments have their own kind of music. Silence isn’t really silent if you listen closely.
Home isn’t just a building. Whether we stay put or start fresh somewhere new, we carry those familiar sounds with us. They live in our memories, ready to comfort us when life changes. Every stage of life deserves a home with its own beautiful music.
Ben Richardson
50plus Magazine
Ben Richardson enjoys helping seniors as a Seniors Real Estate Specialist. He is the principal broker and owner of Ideal Real Estate.