Quiet
I've spent the last few (very early) mornings sitting on my porch and listening to my neighborhood. For all that it is an old single-family home suburb — built in the 1940s, which makes it Bronze Age by Miami standards — there is a surprising amount of noise, even at 5:30am.
There's the service worker traffic heading south, the older cars and jitneys coughing and clanking toward downtown, mixed with the occasional clattering truck. The sustained but muted thunder overhead is the flight path to Miami International Airport, invisible in the darkness. Occasionally there is an insistent thump from a nearby bass car, its windows up but the beat still drowning out all other sound as it passes.
But overall, the peace still wins, if only by comparison to the rest of my life. The soft rustling of the pre-dawn breeze through the palm fronds, the trills and coos of waking birds, the arhythmic patter of early rain — these are calming sounds, so unlike the cacophony of the day to come.
But that is still the future. For now, it is quiet.
7 Comments:
You mean the trills and coos of the waking pigeons!
That is a beautiful observation.
Quiet is a premium ... had several similar moments mid-day in my pad this week. Palm fronds rustiling in the breeze and life is VERY good indeed.
When I moved from SoBe to MidBe (used to live on the corner of West Ave and Lincoln) I realized how loud it was down there, when, for the first time, I heard my hand-cranked alarm clock ticking. Yes, even living on the 10 something floor above Lincoln and West, I had never had enough quiet to hear a clock tick. I just took it for granted.
Needless to say, the ticking was very annoying, but it pointed me to the silence, peace and quiet of my new neighborhood.
Reminds me of my favorite sounds/time. Lime Court- an old house with jalousie windows turned open and sun beams glancing under ol fashioned propped hurricane shutters. The Grove in the morning, quiet, palms rustling, birds, cats scampering after lizards, a dog bark in response, the muted sound of a car or two passing black squirrels fighting in the branches of hardwood trees. The Grove... Hmmm. Now get the Hell out!
i hope one day we can sit on your porch together again. coffee, beer, rum.
i'm working on it.
Even up here in Plantation we get jet overhead. The Turnpike is quite close, as well. It's rarely ever very silent. After the hurricanes is the closest we come to hearing little or nothing but nature. And even then, the damned generators constantly chug along getting their owners nowhere.
I'm glad it's as quiet and peaceful as it is.....that's about my bedtime, lets me drift right off.
Still sounds like a nice part of the world, occasional distractions notwithstanding.
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