Sounds of…

A leaf blower is sounding outside my condo building. A lawnmower roars nearby. A train passes across the street – a Metra or freight train? Who’s to know? What does it matter?

These and other sounds are packed with meaning. Imaginings, too. Memories of past encounters. I remember mowing lawns in my teens, my own and neighbors, and then friends of my parents elsewhere in town, and certainly fellow members of our church. The green blades awaiting their trim. Shade of trees or open yards, the activity of mowing was precise, orderly, tidy, too. It was purposeful and gave me lots of time to think about things.

The leaf blower – I never had one or used one – conjures sights of landscapers servicing lawns both residential and commercial. Their jobs centered on order and tidiness. Purposeful. Useful. Routine, too, until the arrival of snow.

A snow blower reminds me of so many major storms. Not the little ones, the dippy ones of one or two inches. No, I remember the 18-inch snowfalls, even the 2-foot ones, one or two more than that. I remember the winter of 1978-79. Wheaton, Illinois had 93 or 95 inches of snow that year. It was piled over 4 feet in our backyard. Where we shoveled and snowblowed was over 8 feet. Some places over 10 feet. We had to get the stuff out of the way, or we couldn’t park our cars or get into the garage. In those storms, I even shoveled off the garage roof to save the building from collapse.

The clip clip clip of shears and trimmers provide different noise, sounds. The activity was less routine but still as tidy. Shaping the landscape took many tasks and forms. It was tidy. It was purposeful. And it provided arted shapes and contexts to present the home in a pleasant manner.

Bacon sizzling on the stove, the oven’s beeper stating the roast or turkey was done and needed attention. The crackle of a fire in the fireplace. The sound of steps on the stairway, the gurgling plumbing, the opening and closing of doors. All sounds forever asserting life is happening. People close to you are near. The routine and hum of a functioning home is evident all of the time, even if it is the sound of the refrigerator running its on and off routine. Or the AC in summer, furnace in winter.

I recall being deeply alert to sounds that didn’t fit. They told me something was amiss in the house, its systems or structure. My wife was as alert for sounds of the kids growing up. A sniffle, cough or sneeze in the middle of the night received immediate attention. We each had our sound patrol tasks in mind. And followed their dictates.

The sound of silence may seem a nonsequeter, but silence does have a presence, an audible one. Living on the desert taught me that. Blue sky, no clouds, full sunshine. No living creatures evident. Just an enormous space of sight and no sound. An echo-y non-thunder thunder sound comes to mind. The beating heart of nothing. That sense of sound is present in silence. Think of it. You will recall this oddity yourself.

The sound of silence or life is ever present, everywhere. It connects with the now as well as the memory of the past.

September 27, 2024

 

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