Soundwalk

It’s quite fascinating to take a moment to just sit and listen. The sounds we hear everyday, the ones we are so familiar with, seem oddly unfamiliar when we isolate them in our brains. It becomes almost difficult to pinpoint the sources of the sounds that we are so used to. When I say this I mean that we are so tuned out to our surroundings on a daily basis that familiar noises sound different and more significant when we take time to tune in and really hear them. 

I am fortunate enough to have a terrace as part of my apartment, so I took some time to sit out there and hear my neighborhood. With my eyes closed for a while, I am able to focus on the first the louder sounds – the sounds of the occasional car braking to make the turn that leads to the bottom of the hill I live at the top of, the rumbling of the highway at the bottom of that hill, and the sound of my dog barking at my increasingly brave cats trying to join me on my soundwalk. 

As I begin to listen more closely to what is closer to me, I can hear the wind going through the leaves of the tree we have planted in a large pot in the corner, the buzzing sound of the wings of the hundreds of ladybugs that have made their way through a small opening of the screen. It's the same hole we had to make when my cat managed to jump out the window and land herself on the outside of the terrace. As that memory resurfaces I can hear the panic in everyone’s voice as we scramble to bring her back inside. 

While I sit and listen, I not only can hear the sounds around me, but I can hear the sounds of memories that took place here. It was unexpected to hear such sounds that triggered other older memories, when on a normal day I wouldn’t think about.