The sound a vacuum cleaner makes on a clear, cool morning is no different from the noise escaping its disquieting form on cloudy days. But it seems different. The cacophony of vacuum cleaners has no legitimate place on cool, clear mornings. Their presence only sullies the sweet skies with surly, satanic sounds. Bright winter mornings deserve clean, sparkling sounds, gentle commotions like wind chimes or the chatter of ice packs cracking in the sunlight. The sound of hooves on a cobblestone street is another acceptable sound for clear, cool, winter mornings. If I had a sound file of such music, I would play it now. It would take me back to a time before I existed, a time when the air was pure and maple syrup was a rare treat, enjoyed only on mornings that commanded the presence of bacon and pancakes. That simple sound would fill me with memories of drinking buttermilk; and coffee strong enough to break the stoneware mug attempting to contain it. Sounds are like smells; they dredge memories from beneath layer upon layer of sticky experience, exposing them to the present, as if making yesterday into today. If we allow ourselves to examine our negative experiences—no matter how shallow or deep—with some intensity, we find that dwelling on the underbelly of life exposes us to its opposite, through recollection and fantasy. That’s the lesson I take away from my displeasure with the sound of a vacuum cleaner this morning. Would that I could, or would, learn from every such experience. I could, if only I willed it to be so.
Subscribe via Email
-
Recent Posts
- Mulling It Over March 26, 2024
- So Very Brief March 25, 2024
- Rest My Fingers March 24, 2024
- Stink-Eye March 23, 2024
- Doing the Trick? March 22, 2024
Archives
Search on this Site
Categories
Blogroll
- 86,400 Seconds
- A Song Not Scored for Breathing (Cheryl/Hope)
- Actual Unretouched Photo
- Afroculinaria
- Brittle Road
- Chuck Sigars
- CMI Assn. Mgt. Blog
- Cutting Through the Crap
- Elle Jauffret
- HSV Area Restaurants
- Lizardek's Obiter Dictum
- Me and You and Ellie
- Neflix Genre Categories
- Out of the Lotus
- Perils of Caffeine in the Evening
- The New Dharma Bums
- The Singing Wench
- Unretouched Photo
- Words/Love
- writing as jo(e)
- Your Fireant
AR Writer Blogs/ Websites/Resources
- Writer Beware blog
- Considerable Opinions, Millie Gore Lancaster
- Wordcraft, Elizabeth Foster
- Southern Story Lady, Madelyn Young
- John Achor's site
- Nancy Smith Gibson's site
- It Just So Happens, Nancy Gibson Smith blog
- Six Bridges Book Festival
- White County Creative Writers
- Ozark Poets and Writers Collective
- Arkansas Review
- Ozarks Writers League
- Killer Nashville Writers' Conference