It’s a rite of spring and fall for me to clean the windows. I can think of no other household task that I actually get pleasure from. Dusting out the cobwebs and soot that has accumulated between the screen and the glass during the previous season, I wipe clean the blinds, windowsill and wire mesh screening; then polish the windowpanes. Clarity is my reward. Autumn in New England was the time when I would also remove the screens and add storm windows to keep out the cold winds to come.
Now, as I experience autumn in the Southeast for the first time, I am not closing and securing the windows in anticipation of colder temperatures, but the reverse. The hot summer of the South is gently shifting to cooler weather bit by bit, but here it is time to open windows to circulate fresh breezes.
Open windows offer my senses with not just the visual awareness of the out of doors, but the smells and most particularly the sounds. Even indoors I can now hear the sounds of my new neighborhood alerting me to information and triggering emotional responses. The indoor cat is startled, yet fascinated. She looks at me quizzically. We both hear the scratching of squirrels as they scamper up tall trees and peek in the window. We listen for feeding birds landing with a swish on the shrubs. The acorns and pinecones drop from great heights and land with a plop, covering the ground below. The bird songs increase in the early morning hours and late afternoon. Mixed among these gentle sounds are the city noises of traffic, children in a schoolyard at recess, church bells, and an occasional dog bark or ambulance siren. I am aware for the first time of a neighbor who practices an electronic guitar before leaving home in the morning. I can hear another neighbor’s loud bass music booming a beat as he turns his car into his driveway after midnight. And often I can hear the pine needles swish in the wind.
Truly listening is a rare experience. Homes, restaurants, businesses, automobiles, doctor’s offices and libraries are not quiet zones in this time. They are filled with the background noise of televisions, ringing telephones, electronic equipment beeping, radios playing and talk, talk, talk. It seems to me that there is very little space left for listening. My senses are impaired when the rhythm of living energy turns to a cacophony of noise. I feel as if my awareness has become diminished. I am no longer able to fully hear my own energy and my own internal music.
If I listen carefully enough I can hear this music clearly when I awake each morning. It will whisper to me from my body and my mind and integrate the two as one. It will chant that we are all dying while asserting that we are all living. It is not one or the other, but both, that create the harmony.
My Turn 