Wednesday, October 19, 2011
lsproule@thereview.caIt started with the “tock” of walnuts as they dropped to the street in front of our house. The front door was open and the sounds from outside drifted in to my space.
Every once in a while, a car drove by, the sound going from faint to loud to fading away again. Sometimes, there was a loud pop as the wheel of a car popped open one of the walnuts.
Then again, the squirrels were busy eating the walnuts. I know this because our dog sits at the front door carefully watching this procedure. He growls.
From my back yard, I hear the sound of particular cars as they make their way around the block. It’s a small town, for sure.
There is the sound of the wind in the trees, which is louder, it seems to me at this time of year, because the leaves are drier.
Someone is cutting their grass. In the distance, a motorcycle picks up speed. The bell rings at St-Grégoire because church is about to begin.
As I turned my attention back to my book, for the first time, I realized that it is my voice that is reading to me. I tried imagining others narrating and could not . . . it was my voice and no other which could send the book into my mind in silent words.
I read recently that true silence is when you can hear a single sound and nothing else: like when a chickadee breaks the early-morning silence. It seems that the world is rarely a silent place these days. Depending on where you live and what you do each day, the sounds you hear are unique to your world.
But the sound of our own voice and the sounds that we expect to hear every day all around us are something we take for granted. There’s the sound of our own car which we know so well as does the family pet, who runs to the door to greet us as we turn into the driveway.
There are sounds which travel well-worn paths in our minds: our fine-tuned hearing easily recognizes the voices of friends, family and celebrities. We know the sound of our own appliances and tools. We know how doors opening and closing sound in our house, but not those of our neighbour.
We recognize songs and singers when we hear just a few notes.
We also recognize feelings behind voices: who doesn’t know the sound of sympathy in someone’s voice when we have just shared bad news with them? Who cannot detect sarcasm by the tone of someone’s voice?
And when there is an unexpected sound: that strange noise when you are alone in the house or a silly snort behind you when you are in the movie theatre, you sit up and take notice. What was that, you wonder.
