Sitting on a bench with the sunshine warming my face, my ears were bombarded with the sound of countless vehicles endlessly whizzing by, car alarms wailing, horns honking and airplanes droning by overhead.
However, perhaps it is only I who am bothered by this, for I did not grow up with this artificial noise and am now residing in a city due to diminishing career opportunities in agriculture.
Having lived in the country, I could not help but conclude that it is a noisy world that we have created for ourselves and that peaceful reflection is hard to come by in our cities. I have to strain my ears to hear the chirping of the birds over the noise of all those machines. In the country the birds are always easily heard singing their varied melodic songs.
At night, in the summer, the chorus of frogs and crickets puts any orchestra to shame. When the coyotes announce themselves from their shelter in the mountains, I cannot help but feel the wilderness in their call. Why did we trade the sounds of nature for the commotion of machines? I can recall lying in a sunlit field of flowering alfalfa with only the bees buzzing around me to add to the peacefulness filling my ears.
In those moments, my thoughts could wander undisturbed and I could contemplate the universe existing around me. I once came across a fawn curled up in the middle of a field one summer afternoon. I just about walked right on top of it as it didn’t make any sound or move, but just laid there looking at me with luminous eyes. I was struck by how beautiful and graceful such a quiet creature could be.
Who knows what we will find by taking a moment out of our noisy and artificial lives and peacefully acknowledging the magnificence of the earth that cradles us.
Monica Hoffmann
Penticton