Crunching Snow
When it comes to senses, sight gets all the glory.
You’ve got to see this!
Look at that!
This is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.
There’s just nothing else that comes close when using sense
descriptors.
That sounds ok.
This tastes funny.
Don’t touch that!
But really, when you think about it, sound gets a raw
deal. There’s a lot of good things to
hear out there. And all you have to do
is get through the diesel engines, high pitched squealing teen girls at pop
concerts, and cell phone beeps, boops, and blurts to find them.
There’s the song of the chickadee when you’re out camping in
the woods. Sometimes it’s distant, off
through the trees and echoing over the hills.
Other times it’s close, causing you to stop in your hike, trying to spot
the little bird along the thousands of branches about you… waiting for it’s
next call to try to pinpoint it’s location.
There is also the heavy percussion of storm waves against cupped
shore rocks. Anyone can hear the crash
of a wave. It’s common and, although
spectacular, not my favourite. No… it’s
that heavy thumping against rocky hollows that wows me along the coast. It often follows the initial crash… as the
foamy water holds enough power to push on over that first rocky obstacle and
fill those hidden caves and carved out pits.
You almost feel it reverberate in your chest. That’s the ocean sound I miss most.
Another missed sound from home is that of distant foghorns
on misty nights. A foghorn sounds better
at night. It’s clearer with the hum of
the day put to bed. The lone echo as
everyone hunkers down for a tea, or book in front of the fire. It acts as the night watchman of modern
times. With each drawn out moan, it
tells you “all’s well.”
Since my most recent move, I’ve gained a sound that acts
very much as the foghorn from home. It
relaxes my senses and quiets my pulse.
Some five or six kilometres to my south, a train track leads the way to
Montreal. And a couple of times an hour,
when the wind is right and you think to listen, the distant whine of the
train’s whistle drones across the air.
Another sound which has come back to prominence for me,
since my move, is that of cold snow, crunching under foot in the woods. It’s a humbling thing to be in a city so
large… yet to be in a place where the loudest sound, at that moment, is that of
your own footsteps.
Sports also have favourite sounds for me. The dink of a puck off a goalpost during a
playoff overtime game. Few sounds bring
more drama or heart stopping excitement.
An instant of terror strikes if the post was that of your favourite
team’s net. A moment of anticipated joy
if it’s on the enemy’s net. It always
takes a second after the strike to comprehend if something good or bad just
occurred.
There’s the pop of a ball in a glove. Especially the pop of a glove after it was
you who threw the ball. An echoing snap
that begs everyone nearby to look… and see what has just happened.
The crack of a bat hitting a ball is an amazing sound as
well. Not that ping of ball off
composite bats. But the crack that only
can come from a well hit ball with a wooden bat. The sound that tells you the ball was just
hit a long way. You don’t even need to
see the hit to know. You just hear it
go.
Voices are also a wonder for the ears. Everyone has different voices that bring them
pleasure, comfort, or peace. For me,
some are voices of people I don’t know.
Others are the voices of those who are most important to me.
Bob Cole is an ageing hockey announcer. He gets names wrong often but there is still
nobody calling a hockey game that can create more excitement. His voice peaks at just the right moments of
a game… often times building in pitch and excitement as the play heads up the
ice and creating goal post clanging style anticipation as the player winds up
for a shot… he bellows the name as the stick arcs up… holding the last syllable
as the puck is away…. And you sit waiting for the outcome…
“Here he comes… across the blue line… What a Move…
GRETZKYYYYYYY… Scores!”
Vin Scully does for baseball what Bob Cole does for
hockey. He creates magic. But in a completely different way.
Where Cole builds the moment into a fever, Scully sits you
down and proceeds to tell you stories.
Lingering stories about things that wouldn’t be deemed exciting or earth
shattering… but stories that hold you in place, wanting to hear more.
Scully has stories about the home team and the
visitors. He’ll tell you a tale about a
veteran superstar or a rookie making his debut.
He always seems to have something to say about everyone and it draws you
in, makes you care what happens to that player… or that team.
And even with the stories, Scully is able to keep us up on
the action as well. He’ll pause in mid
sentence… as if taking a breath to continue… and out eases “there’s ball one to
Ramirez as he watches it drift outside”… and then while we wait for the next
pitch, he continues on with the tale he was just sharing. Vin Scully brings poetry to sport.
And then there are the voices of family. There was my gruff grandfather, proclaiming
that my dog was Judas! As she leaves my side to return to his only when toast
is being buttered at the dinning room table.
There was his wife, my grandmother, never raising her voice
but always respected for her gentle spirit… commanding more respect than any
thundering discipline. I remember
arriving to visit her once, desperate to go to the washroom as I arrived… I
passed her by in the hall, telling her I’d return to hug her in a moment… and
as I was closing the bathroom door behind me, I’d hear her soft chuckle… filled
with enjoyment and peace.
My other grandmother spoke somewhere in between the
gruffness of my grandfather and gentleness of my previously mentioned
grandmother. As a kid, I’d sometimes
enjoy the whoopee cushion style sounds coming from myself… and my smile would
break in to laughter as she’d look to me and proclaim “Why you dirt!”
My own mother’s sneeze is uniquely hers. Anytime I’d hear it… especially the nose
tickled one, as opposed to the have a cold one… It somehow lightens my
mood. In fact… this reminds me how
sometimes sounds counteract each other.
For instance… I could be engulfed in a hockey game… hearing Bob Cole
build the excitement as the play heads up the ice… and just as the windup
occurs and the name is bellowed out…. GRETZKYYYYY… there’s mom’s “wachoo” from
the other side of the room… and I’m instantly brought back down from the
wildness to a sense of home.
Dad has a slurp that both goes right through me and makes me
think of him all at once. It’s to the
point where if I hear any other slurp, I’ll instantly think of dad and compare
that which I just heard to that which I’ve heard thousands of times. My father will never be far out of mind, as
long as I’m in a room containing someone’s bowl of hot soup.
And there’s my sister’s telephone greeting. Always sounding as if the phone call is some
fluke happening… despite her having dialed the number. “Oh hi” she begins when the other person
answers. It’s said gently, with
friendliness, and it is a reminder of family times whenever I hear it.
Yes, sight may be the star when it comes to senses… but
there’s a subtle magic that comes with sound.
SUNDAY…
--- Dayshift. Oh how
I hate that first 4:30 wake up… never a good night’s sleep.
--- Plainly speaking… there are just too many stupid people
using Facebook. On this day, at least a
half dozen head shakingly moronic status updates. Subtlety and discretion are two things
completely unknown by these people.
--- Work is fairly slow going for the day. Not unusual for a Sunday.
--- I almost run into the house pulling into the
garage. Uneven ice buildup in the
driveway had the car slide off to the side near the garage. Good I was going slow enough to stop and back
up for another run.
--- Funny (sad) fact… we’ve become so interconnected with
celebrities that we have lost all compassion for them as people. Whitney Houston died yesterday… I wasn’t a
big fan and admit her life to being quite a train wreck in recent years… but I
heard at least four or five people speaking as though it’s just as well she’s
dead now. No problem with the fact
people wouldn’t be broken hearted by it… but to speak so coldly about a lost
life seems harsh. Sometimes respectful
silence is a lot better than spoken coldness.
Class is a dying trait.
MONDAY…
--- A bit busier at work.
Physio right after that… I’m not home and ready to relax until about
8:30. A little TV… but tired. Staying up late for night shift isn’t always
easy.
TUESDAY…
--- An afternoon walk before nap time. Stumble across a woodpecker. Take a few pics and videos of him and then
realize, on the rest of the walk, that quite a few trees around here have been
gone over by woodpeckers. Neat.
--- Work is steady and the weather fairly mild for a mid
February day.
WEDNESDAY…
--- Heavy duty burger for supper. Five Guys Burgers… tasty… but so much food.
--- Not much out of the ordinary at work.
THURSDAY…
--- Up to early… about 10:30. A little TV and then to Mazda for a tune
up. I do a bit of a walk while they work
but it’s very industrial there and the traffic is too noisy to be enjoyable.
--- A few groceries at Farm Boy after Mazda and then, after
some lunch, I do a peaceful woods walk.
45 minutes flies by… it feels like I’m out there for fifteen
instead. And there’s something great
about being in a city of more than a million… yet I spent 45 minutes just
outside my house in a forest where woodpeckers are the only company I have and
the sound of my footsteps in the snow is the most dominant noise.
FRIDAY…
--- Up too early.
Lunch with Karl. Go to the
Blackburn Arms. Good ol’ Bangers and
Mash.
--- A walk after I bring Karl back to his sister’s and some TV
in the evening.
SATURDAY…
--- Physio is followed by a candy run for movie night. And then a bunch are over in the evening for
Troll 2 on Blue Ray. A bizarrely bad,
yet fun movie. A good time.
