NOISE. Noise is orange. We know about white noise. Most peoples' lives are full of white noise. My noise is orange. It surrounds me, I can't escape it. Silence eludes me, there is no quiet place. At night, live music doesn't just waft through my window, it charges through. A woman's voice, Hebrew lyrics, sometimes the beat of the reggae drums. I wake sometimes, surprised to see my windows and walls still intact. I expect to find myself beneath her microphone, curled beneath a steel drum. Next door, my neighbour loses himself in opera, night after night. Our connecting wall is thin, it hums me to sleep in Italian.
My street, rechov Bialik, is named for the poet Chaim Nachman Bialik. It was once a beautiful road, a stroll back in time from the dirty reality of Allenby, that used to be rounded off at its very end with a fountain. Work has begun to restore the old feeling of the road. Work that begins at 6.30am every day and will last until October.
He was a great poet, but I would really like the noise to stop.