#7 - The Sounds of Summer

The Sounds of Summer

Just as a song can bring you back to a very particular time in your life, so can the time of the year be brought back by a sound of that season. This struck me the other night is I listened to June bugs thumping against the windowpane. That happens only in the summer.

And so it is with the sounds of neighbors mowing their lawns and children yelling as they cannonball each other at the swimming hole. The humming of outdoor cocktail parties, the spitting of watermelon seeds, the steady slamming of screen doors, the sizzling of sparklers, the clinking of a hoe in rocky soil, the swishing of lawn sprinklers, the creaking of porch swings and the squabbling of husbands and wives over how to operate the family boat - are all man-made summer sounds.

For nature's part is the cry of an osprey, the clicking of swallows, the buzzing of bees, the whine of mosquitoes, the rustling of corn, the splashing of mackerel, the croak of a heron, the pleading call of a baby crow, the whistle of a woodchuck and the almost inaudible whisper of grass growing.

These are some of the summer sounds I hear. I always notice them . . . but am too busy making my own sounds so rarely stop to reflect on how full of special noises the season is, or how much they tell of what is happening all about. 

And there is more to it than that. A characteristic sound of the season can be forgot . . . until I first hear it again after a whole year has passed. It can be thrilling and warming and, if nothing else, reassuring. For that sound says things are still normal, that the world is on track. It tells of the ongoing process of life and speaks of natural cycles and regularity.

Sounds are key elements of our home territory. Whether or not we are listening, each signals the condition of things around us, and surely any change from what we are used to will catch our ear. Even the absence of sound will tell something - maybe that other ears are listening too.

Then there might be a sound that has excitement and "magic" to it - like the sound of blueberries dropping into a tin pail.