The familiarity of sound

With summer starting to poke it's head through my curtains, I've gotten into the habit of leaving my windows open and blinds slightly cracked to catch the breeze - one of the many advantages of living so close to the beach, for all my complaints about how this area may never be a home to me, it certainly is a nice place for temporary dwelling when conditions are ideal - which is generally at least 7 months out of the year when the heat is just right and the humidity isn't out of control.

For the past few days, I've become accustomed to the sound of the fountain outside my apartment shutting off abruptly around 11 pm and then cranking on every morning at 7 am. It's a sound I never really noticed before, something that I honestly took for granted the last few months that was a big positive point when I first moved in, rather than having other apartments or woods to look at, I had the fountain, I had the sound of water to wake up to and then if I wasn't content with the sound, I only had a 15 minute walk to get to the beach.

I never realized how much sounds matter to me until I really began to concentrate on waiting for that 7 am waterfall to begin to flow, my indicator that it was truly time for me to get my day started if I hadn't already. Before, when I lived with my grandparents, I would laze about upstairs until I heard my grandmother making her breakfast: tea in the morning, with toast, and two hard boiled eggs.

It was like clockwork.

I knew that once I made my way down the stairs, I could expect to see her at the table in the kitchen, fully dressed for her day, newspaper laid flat where she would be working out the crossword puzzle and occasionally stealing glances out the window she faced while she sipped her morning brew.

Familiar like the sound of the garage door opening at our old home in North Carolina. Knowing that I could almost count down the seconds it would take for my mother or father to open the door and turn off the alarm.

It's little things, that move us forward like clockwork. It's the sound of my grandfather bellowing out through the house What up spook to my mother or to me, it's my mom jokingly telling my dad You're not the boss of me, you can't tell me what to do, with a scowl on her face before laughing.

It's hearing my own laugh and realizing just how much I sound like my own mother that went from being something scary to something comforting...the knowledge that even when we're far apart, that I can always have that as a reminder of where I came from.

It's the little things, the rhythm I've created at work when putting my stories to tape, the way that someone says something the same way every time, the staccato form our weekend weatherman says the news starts right now, while the evening weatherman almost sings it to viewers...it's sounds that we just learn.

I remember sitting up at night at my great grandmother's house in Philly and listening to the sounds of the street. Cars speeding, ambulances, firetrucks, police cars, all these sounds turning into a lullaby of sorts in the summer.

I remember the song my grandfather and I call ours...and listening to it almost always makes me cry because it reminds me just how close he and I are.

While there are plenty sounds that I love, a fresh rain storm, kids playing outside laughing, mothers cooing their children into submission, there's nothing that comforts more than the sounds that I know definitively; the things that never change that have become engraved in my being as a small nook to escape into when the world is so loud and I need some peace.