Out in my garden on gorgeous summer day, the air was suddenly filled with the roar of fighter jets, practicing formation and carrier landings at the base. It is far away by human standards, but by jet standards it is next door. This was not an unfamiliar occurrance. In fact it happened with maddening frequency, even though we were told they weren’t supposed to fly over our area, especially so low.
Some around here have bumper stickers saying, “I (heart) Jet Noise,” and when the jets roar by, remark without irony, “Ah, the sound of freedom!”
Freedom for whom, I wonder, and for/from what?
I think of that saying of how to tell who has the power: “Who decides? Who pays? Who wins?”
The aural assault is bad enough for me, safe in my privileged life, but knowing that for someone—not so unlike me—trying to protect her children in a war that she had no say in and no way to get away from, that sound was far, far worse. It was a threat to life itself.
Thunder From a cloudless sky Rains death Rivulets flow into puddles of red Scattered artifacts still warm Stillness amid chaos No tears left to mourn Just a dry well crusted with salt and nothing to drink but loss
Hey Erika! I was thinking recently about how absolutely absurd and obscene it is that we do flyovers at NFL games. The average cost of a super bowl flyover is $4,000,000 when you account for the planning that goes into it. Like, can we maybe put that towards something a little more important? They do flyovers for other NFL games as well. Just ridiculous, and after not living in the states for a long time, I've come to see how obscene our wealth really is. I've subscribed!
I’m so glad that you posted this—it’s so eerie to think of how blind so many, too many, are to what the reality of this sound means, how it reverberates across distances we also turn away from. The succinctness of it makes it even stronger. 💜