A sound.

I become aware of a sound.  It finds its way to me through the whirring of my laptop, the hissing of the electrical devices, the faint but constant buzzing of wattage adaptors in the ceiling, the dull, oppressive hum of the metal in the roof, my own blood singing in my ears.  I try to focus on my translation, but the sound has now caught my attention and I am drawn to it, want to let it in.  It’s insistent, and what makes it especially persuasive is that it’s alive.  Something between a breath and a voice.  A voice that tells me Listen to me.  What you’re doing is not important… and deep down you know it.  I can’t accept that.  I stare at my computer screen, try to whip my focus back in step with the wishes of the author of the text I’m translating.  Something in my belly rises up to my chest and swells, but I block it in my throat, because I know that if I let it out, it will gush out in a scream.

The sound gently persists and now mutates almost into a song.  I close the lid of my laptop, get up from my desk and tune my ear to the sound, trying to locate it’s origin.  It has a modulating tone, like a voice.  My eyes wander to the French windows and I suddenly see where the sound is coming from.  Well, I can’t see, exactly, but I know it’s edging through the tiny gap between the two halves of the double door.  The same way as I know that there are many colours in this sound, many music notes in this voice – colours I could never find on an artist’s palette, notes never written on any score.  It’s the wind, singing through the gap in the steel-framed doors.

I open the French windows and step out on the balcony, where I am greeted by a multitude of other sounds.  There’s the steely, constant background hum of the traffic on the main road, of course, but the voice of the wind guides my ears towards another frequency.  The high-pitched peeps of baby pigeons in the roof gutter, the swishing of seagull wings in the air, the faraway call of a jackdaw. I fine-tune my ear a little more and look at the Corsican pines in the distance.  Their branches are gently swaying, their needles rustling, their cones softly crackling.  It’s like a perfectly conducted orchestral concert. 

There’s a chill in the air.  I am reminded that the summer solstice was a few days ago, and that the days are imperceptibly beginning to draw in.  A hint of yin to balance the yang. I smile.  I have all these weeks of bright sunlight ahead, to help see things clearly, to gather all the elements needed for the autumn.  All these weeks of sunlight for looking out for things to store for when the weeks come when I will be looking within.  All the bits and bobs, all the odds and ends required to weave wishes into intentions, brew impressions into thoughts, kindle sparks into a fire for when the evenings grow darker, turn hopes into magic.  Magic.  How could I not look forward to that?

Scribe Doll