5 October 2008
SILENCE
If you live in New York, you discover that there is, in fact, a sound to silence. It is the incredibly conspicuous clack of your fingers dancing across the keyboard. The fan of the laptop humming against the top of the bed. The actual ticking of your wristwatch from five feet away, and the freight train’s rumble across the tracks and whistle over three miles away. The simple fact that you can hear these things is a reminder of the things you’re not hearing.
And those things are the sounds of New York City. It’s where you’re forced to hear drunken people shuffling down the street. Cars and cars pass by. And what’s not expressly identifiable becomes this low hum of white noise which is the cumulative sum of every siren, junkie, broken bottle and subway train crossing town.
I’ve found silence again by coming to my hometown. Here, in the beginnings of autumn, not only can I find peace and quiet, but I can discover — I never fully appreciated that which I took for granted growing up here — the incredible beauty that are trees, spanned across the horizon, peppered with greens, browns, oranges, reds and yellows. Here I can find twilight with a dark landscape, indigo sky, orange sunset with the very rims of the clouds overhead painted a delicate red-violet.
Here is where I can find dew crystallizing in the middle of the night to greet the morning as frost.
I may never again belong here, but I’ll certainly never forget that I still call this place home even though I live two hundred and fifty miles away.
I agree. It’s true from 2800 miles away too. There’s no night sky like Upstate NY. I saw more stars there then I ever dreamed existed.
5 October 2008: 3:58 am
I also love the autumn in Upstate NY. There’s no season like it. Course I never really left it. This is my favorite time of year; the beginning of fall before we set our clocks back.
Next time you’re in the area give shoot me an email.
10 October 2008: 9:32 am
i’m going the opposite direction. i’ve learned to appreciate the changing colors, etc., but i often find myself missing my hometown…the big city.
19 October 2008: 11:48 pm
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