listening...
It was a cool morning in Seattle today. It smelled nice. The trees were green, the sky sunny and clear. But there was a problem. Noise. It wasn't quiet. For the entire five minute walk from my hotel to the training center, the dominant sound was the freeway and side roads. Cars, moving too and fro, creating an ever present humming like an enormous swarm of killer bees. It was dissonant. I wasn't used to it.
Yesterday, as we descended into SeaTac, Mt. Rainier overwhelming the sky with it's enormity, I had to remind myself that this was a city. A big city. I haven't been in a big city for any length of time since we moved to Laredo, TX in 2002, and Spokane, WA in 2003. I've become used to quiet. Small. Quaint. But I know big cities. I've been to big cities. They don't scare me, but they take a mindset, a change of attitude, an adaptation, if you will. I prepared myself for this as the wheels of our cramped jet hit the pavement.
As I walked to the training center, I tried to imagine what it would sound like if their weren't any cars. It was hard to do, since all I could hear was road noise. But then, as I crossed a little bridge from the parking lot of the training center, to the main building, I heard something else competing with the road noise. Something natural. Something primal and old. I stopped. What was this sound? I turned and looked down. Below the bridge was a brook. A small and babbling brook, almost hidden under ivy and fern. Flowing over moss covered rocks with clear, clean water, it wound it's way from under the drive way above, under the walkway bridge that I stood on, and dissapeared under into the underbrush beyond. I could still hear the freeway. It was still screaming in all it's modern volume. But down below me, here was a place of beauty, peace, and quiet.
Having been early, I stood and looked at it for a bit, leaning on the wooden railing. The sound of the water over the stones created a sort of music that strove against the roaring of the roads and the freeway in the distance, in it's own peaceful but persistent way. Then, I heard something else.
"It used to look different, you know."
I was startled. I looked around, and saw nobody.
"Hello?" I offered.
"The brook. It used to look different." The quiet voice said. The voice was neither male nor female, loud or soft. It just was, right in my ears. Not exactly knowing what to do, I replied timidly.
"What do you mean?"
"Before."
"When?"
"Before now."
The voice didn't seem to have any reference points in time to offer, so I offered some.
"Do you mean, before they built the buildings around it?"
"Yes. That was before now."
I wasn't sure what to say next, but noticed on my watch that it was about time for my training class to start.
"Listen..." I said.
"I always do."
"Sorry?"
"I always listen."
"Oh. Listen, I have to go into that building over there, for a class." I said softly. "Will you still be here at noon?"
"I've always been here."
"Well, uh, ok. I'll be back in just a bit then." I said as I turned away, but then I thought of something else, "Oh, by the way, do you have a friend named 'Chuck'?"
"Named?"
"Uh..well, never mind."Labels: listen
