Still cold from the chill of this morning's walk, I sat in a quiet coffee shop earlier today, in a city still quiet the day after Thanksgiving, thinking about the beautiful sounds I heard earlier in the morning.
It was pretty windy at times as I rounded certain corners of Stow Lake, and there were lots of leaves and dried bark being blown from the gusts around the main path. I also noticed that one particular large, old and very stately looking tree's limbs and branches looked as if they were dancing as the wind whipped them around. It struck me that it looked like a visual representation of an uninteresting poet describing the scene I was witnessing.
After what I believe was my second lap around the lake, I decided to veer off onto the car path, as I frequently do when I want avoid people. (I should point out that I do this, for the most part, to have the space to better try to understand my feelings at the time). As I crossed to the right side, the wind began to blow strongly, and I heard overhead the branches of what seemed like all the trees in the park blowing, and most beautifully, the crisp, crackling sounds of dry wood breaking. Now that I think of it, what I was hearing could have meant to me the impending death of the trees in question, or less cynically, the shedding of old, unneeded skin, but all that I thought of at the time, and what still stays with me most now, is that sound.
I feel that I am very sensitive to the world audible to humans, and perhaps my ears are sometimes 'too open' (for I can also become easily irritated by sounds that I don't like), but I also believe that this quality can help me to listen better to what's around me, and there are are so many wonderful things to hear.
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