My wife and I moved to Malibu six months ago from Topanga. It was the smartest move of our lives. We adore it here in Malibu. Our neighbors are wonderful, the ocean is gorgeous, the hills are stunning. We’re hooked, and we never want to leave. We ask ourselves how could we be so lucky?’
One of the most surprising and unexpected benefits of moving here has been the quiet and solitude. Topanga is a noisy place. But here in Decker Canyon, from our deck we see only three houses, all far away. Below us is an untouched meadow and canyon full of birds and rabbits. The quiet! It’s so wonderful, it’s astonishing. Neither of us grew up in the country, and we’ve been amazed at how healthy and energizing, how truly extraordinary, silence can be.
Alas, there is usually a snake in paradise, and the snake here for us can sometimes be the private planes, which, on a clear day, often pass directly over our house every few minutes. Though some of them are jets, many are piston-driven planes, and even thousands of feet away their motors sound completely unmufflered. The birds go silent. The rabbits hide. Luckily, these roaring private planes often don’t show up on cloudy or windy days. But now that we’ve become devoted to quiet, it’s made me wonder. What’s going to happen when more planes fill the skies? When the motorcycles that we hear only occasionally start booming up the canyon all the time? When the helicopters that already infest the coast become so numerous that their chatter never really ceases from dawn to dusk. Such concerns no doubt seem elitist or silly to some. What’s quiet compared to mass starvation or disease or poverty? All movements towards making the Earth better begin by standing accused of such elitism. Are we alone in our worries about plane noise in the ‘Bu? I don’t think so. I think plane and ‘copter noise is probably already a far bigger problem down closer to the Malibu coast.
Quiet is wonderful. It should be everyone’s right. Can we start by regulating private plane and ‘copter traffic right here in Malibu? It’s an issue I plan to consider when I cast my first Malibu vote this year.
Peter Russell