Listening to the Wind

Close your eyes, Uncle Willie said, and listen.

We had made a path through the tall, uncut grass and laid a quilt down where we could see the water and the road.He had brought the dominoes and a pitcher of iced tea but the day was too lazy to make the effort of playing so he decided to teach me about listening. Obediently I closed my eyes. What do you hear? he asked and I said, Nothing.

Try again, he told me. I shut my eyes tightly and hugged my knees to my chest. Several minutes passed before I realized I could hear the tide coming in, the waves against the rocks made a muted splash then retreated over the sand. I heard the woodchopper from my own yard across the road and the click of metal against wood as the ropes from the flags hit the pole. I heard ice clinking in the pitcher of tea and the sharp crack of sheets flapping in the wind, the steady chug of the ferry as it made its way against the current, grass rustling all around me. I heard an engine and knew immediately that it was the mail car, then footsteps, whistling and the dancing steps of a dog - Buttons and Gene, I knew at once. Another car coming around the Old Road, still unpaved, and making a spray of gravel against the ditch, Aunt Vi's old pick up, lobster traps bouncing in the truck bed. I heard the wind and all the sounds it carried - a discarded piece of metal washing up on the shore, the vibrating hum of the power wires, a fishing boat far in the distance and the small, quick sound of a match being struck.

Doors opened and closed, voices called, a sudden avalance of pebbles cascaded down the side of the cliff, I heard the ferry dock and moments later a caravan of vehicles drove past. The factory whistle blew three o'clock with a shrill, piercing sound and the men and women began their trek home. I heard conversations, lunch pails clanging,
heavy boots marching past, it was the sound of weariness and days end. I heard all this from an overgrown field overlooking the ocean and was amazed that it had always been there and I'd never noticed.

That, Uncle Willie told me, is the difference between hearing and listening. There were no notes, no stage, no instruments, but it was music all the same.