Thursday, March 18, 2010

My favorite sound

No, not music. Or birdsong, or waves against the beach. My favorite sound is water rushing down the hill a few hundred feet from my house.

Here in the rocky, forested hills, channels have been carved by man and nature for capturing excess water. Some of these are steep and create a muted roar when full. I see and hear them every time it rains, but the noise stops shortly after the rain does. Usually the channels are silent during the winter, except for intermittent, short-term melts.

This time of year, however, these dry beds become gushing, galloping streams for days or even weeks as mountainloads of snow succumb to temperature and gravity. It’s kind of like a bathtub emptying: water goes down the drain and land emerges.

It happens suddenly -- one day I step out the door and hear the rushing. It continues during dry weather, which is how I know the season has turned. This year, this week, I started hearing it again. It’s also the week that the daffodils broke through the ground and migrating birds started returning. These are my favorite events of the year. And so that rushing water is my favorite sound.


Carolyn Haley

Author: The Mobius Striptease (e-novel, Club Lighthouse Publishing)
Open Your Heart with Gardens
(nonfiction, DreamTime Publishing)
First-year blog archives at www.dreamtimepublishing.com
Editing Business: DocuMania (www.documania.us)

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