Sound

Mostly, like now, it's quiet. Very very quiet. I can hear the faint whir of the propane refrigerator, the chirp of a bird, and... that is all. The loudest sound here is the chugging of the lobster boats. The boats head out around 5 am, about the time I like to wake up. They chug around the bay intermittently throughout the day and are mostly back around 2 pm. At least, that is how it's been this week. Maybe they go out and return around the same time every day, maybe their schedules change with the tides or the seasons; I don't know. I also don't know how they can set out in the damp opaque fog. If I were a lobsterfisherperson, I would want to wait for a sunny warm morning with long clear views.

Other noises here are seagulls calling, red squirrels chattering, and cormorants flapping as they take flight from the surface of the bay. It's quiet. I like quiet. Quiet is soothing, restful, and peaceful. Quiet is conducive to Reiki reflections.

There are lots of noises back at my house. The neighbors are bikers and have lots of biker friends and there is the blasting roar of Harleys at all hours. One day there was a biker funeral gathering. Without warning, 35 Harleys exploded up the street. Bikes and big loud pickup trucks parked all up and down the street, blocking driveways, mailboxes, and trash waiting for pickup. There were stacks of pizza boxes on tables on the front lawn. The mourners gathered in the middle of the street and on the lawn, sipping bottled beer and eating slices. The bikers I've spoken to have all been friendly and courteous. Other home noises are oil delivery trucks, fast loud cars, sirens, honking package and meal deliveries, and the hospital helicopter. Dogs bark all day, all evening, every day. None of that here. 

It was noisy the other night. There was a terrific storm with thunder, lightning, wind, and rain. A hard rain fell. The windows rattled, rain pounded on the roof and deck, the sky flashed with diffuse light, and all the rocking chairs on the deck pitched forward and back as if inhabited by frantic caffeinated ghosts. The windows streamed with rivulets, like being in a carwash. It seemed like I was in a boat, in a storm at sea. I looked across the bay and saw a pink sunset behind storm clouds. Above me, a tempest. 

It is quiet here. 

Bark

I was walking on a beach when I heard a bark. I turned around, expecting to see a dog. I did see a brown creature, and thought, briefly, that it was a large dog. It was a deer. It was four deer in a meadow. We watched each other for a while, then they continued to graze.

The beach was on an island, off another island; it was a two-bridge-island beach. I was the only human on the beach. COVID-19 dented the touristy influx, and drizzly 50-degree weather kept away the wise locals. So just me and the deer in the meadow. And the yellow rockweed, purple irises, large soft-edged slabs of pink granite, gray sky and waves, raucous crows, soaring seagulls, and bobbing daisies. The beach was U-shaped, with sand at the nadir of the U and pink granite sides. The spruce and pine forest came right down to the granite on one side, the other side was a bog and a long stretch of flat granite shoreline. There was a yellow boulder, shaped like a corn muffin. Lobster boats chugged past. The beach was a good place for buried thoughts to come bubbling up for inspection, but after four months of COVID isolation, I'm pretty much cleaned out of repressed memories and regrets.