Sounds of Silence....

Do you have favourite sounds you like to listen to? Perhaps it's that you love to listen to music a lot. I love music too, but there are other sounds that I love even more.

Right now I am enjoying a break, having a cup of tea and listening to the sounds around me, other than the click clacking of my keyboard that is.

We have a multitude of birds who live in the trees in this area. Very different than where I grew up. I grew up in an area where the only bird you heard was the black crows caw cawing at 6am in the morning.

I live in a tropical area and even though it is in the suburbs it still attracts many different birds. Don't you just love all their different bird calls?

It's quite a busy street that we live on, so during the week there is a lot of traffic dropping off and picking up children from the school in our neighbourhood. Once that time is passed in the morning everything is silent and on weekends it is dead calm and silent.

So what do I hear right now?......one car passing, four different bird calls, a puppy snoring at my feet and a neighbour mowing his lawn in the distance somewhere.

There's some construction work going on in our street this month and they've been drilling for I don't know what. My husband says it might be they're drilling through some rock to set the foundations. It starts at 7am each week day morning and then continues intermittently throughout the day.

They must be on a break right now, just in time for my ten minute break from house work and cleaning. I love the peace and quiet of my little home and when the children are at school and my husband is at work I very rarely...actually never put on any music or the television. I just love the quiet and solitude and peace for my few hours a day. I love the sound of silence! I am a home body. Apart from the occassional trip to the shops or to visit a friend, I am happy to be at home and taking care of my family and home.

I have my puppies to keep me company and the birds to sing me their songs.

I've lived in the suburbs most of my life, except when I lived in a big city for ten years in my 20's. During that time I missed the quiet of the suburbs. It was always noisy, people living on top of each other and hearing everyone else's noises on top of my own, blaring music from next doors stereo, fighting from the flat downstairs, cars, trucks and neverending traffic noises, trains nearby, planes overhead, gangs of youth roaming the streets after a wild night out. Not my idea of a peaceful lifestyle. I was there by choice, for work and for my volunteer work too. Even there I created a haven and a place to try and relax - my little balcony where I would sit in the evening with my then new husband and we'd enjoy a quiet drink and chat after a frazzling day in the city.

We used to laugh when we'd visit our friends in the next block of units and we'd look over and see our balcony. It was completely covered in plants, hanging and otherwise. You could hardly see an empty space and you'd have to look closely to see us sitting there amongst the foliage. Our small green garden was surrounded by a concrete jungle. There in the middle of it was our cute little haven, plants on the balcony and lacey curtains adorning the windows (my cottage theme era). It looked so out of place amongst the pollution and bricks and stark ugly dirty city buildings, but we didn't care. It was our little home and haven. Not much silence but still a little corner of the world where we could escape to.

But I always knew I would never bring up my children there. So when it was time for my husband and I to start a family we moved with my parents to a lovely sea side area.

It has grown here too and sometimes I feel hemmed in by the noise of the suburbs and traffic, but I try to plan my time so that when it's noisy I am cleaning the house or busy cooking and then when it is quiet....

.....I am resting and enjoying the silence in my favourite reading spot only recently created, so not yet complete.

I think it's important that no matter where you live you make yourself a place where you can relax and listen to the sounds of silence or enjoy the sounds of nature. It re-energizes your batteries to get up and get on with the rest of your day.

My dream is to live in the country surrounded by birds - and no neighbours, not that I don't want to be sociable, just would enjoy the open spaces between visits.

Well, the silence is over and the drilling has started again...back to work.
What are your favourite sounds?