SURROUND SOUND
I’m sitting on our little London terrace on the 4th day of a heatwave, (more about that later). Just sitting here listening: a murmur of voices a few gardens down; the distant bark of a dog; rustling leaves as a sudden breeze makes a short-lived visit. But no birdsong.
On Thursday we returned from a month in Cornwall where we staying in what was once a tin miner’s cottage. From the front garden we could look across wheat fields to the sea. I liked sitting there in the early evening, feeling the sun on my face, listening to birdsong and the occasional lament of seagulls.
Once in a while the wheels of a scooter would roll down the footpath in front of the cottage, heralding the arrival of a blonde, pig-tailed girl who would sail past the gate on her way to chat with some neighbours a few gardens down.
When I first saw her scoot by, I thought it was me, aged 8, and I disappeared into my summer childhood. Through an open window next door, a clock chimed the hour and from its first strike I counted, as I would have done while playing in my garden back then; counting how much time I had before being called in. The sound of time. Children born into the digital age neither hear, or see, the passing of time. It just is whatever a screen shows it to be. Maybe that’s a good thing. I’m not convinced.
Every room in the house I grew up in had a clock, but only the one in the dining room chimed. It stopped me every time I heard it, telling me I was late for school, or ready for lunch, or that Dad would be home from work soon. I didn’t like it when it chimed 4 o’clock on Sunday afternoons causing dread about undone homework and the end of 2 days of freedom from school, although it also signaled afternoon tea and my father’s solemn weekly winding of the clock’s mechanism.
I’m at an age when the accrual of life’s losses often cause melancholy. These days I also sometimes feel sad about my leg, even though I’ve been making good progress. I tend to guard myself against expectation and disappointment. Sure, I love hearing people tell me how amazing I am – who doesn’t? – but it also makes me anxious. Just because I’ve come this far doesn’t mean I don’t have a lot further to go. And it still hurts like buggery.
On my 6th birthday I was given a red and yellow push scooter which I named Marmaduke. We lived on The Avenue and for a couple of years, I whizzed up and down it on Marmaduke, sailing past other people’s garden gates; right leg standing on the platform, left leg pushing away, faster and faster, the synchronized sound of its rubber wheels and my foot on the pavement; the whoosh of speed.
On my birthday last Monday, I was determined to make it out to the Zennor cliffs for a picnic lunch. It was the hottest day of the summer and I didn’t need the chime of a clock to remind me that only mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the noon-day sun. It was a mile walk out to reach a boulder adequate enough for a picnic perch while overlooking the view I’d dreamed of for months.
The unshaded walk back was 3000 miles of groaning on one stick, passing jolly hikers, most of whom got the message: “Fuck off, I’m coming through.” There was one stand-out couple though who were totally oblivious to my painful struggle, or maybe the hubby thought I was having an orgasm, prompting him to remark, “Lovely day for it, isn’t it?”
Talking about heat, it is warm out here on the terrace, but nothing compared to what we experienced in Tuscany. But yes, it’s all relative. Here in England 90 F is unheard of and that, combined with the drought since June has decimated the gardens, parks and farmland. If you listen you can hear the suffering earth. Still, compared to Tuscany, while not a breeze, it is bearable. What’s not bearable is our diminishing capacity to listen. It’s not just the vanishing chime of the clock, it’s our inability to sit still and listen to each other and the world around us. We are filling space with constant “information” that doesn’t come from our own observation, but rather from the noise of Instagram, Tik Tok, Podcasts, Spotify, Twitter, ear pods shoved in our ears, eyes on the screen. We are literally brainwashed by “music:” in the elevator, in every restaurant, blaring from cars and builders’ radios. Remember when the news was not 24/7? Remember when broadcast news was not introduced by pounding music seducing us into believing we are about to be entertained…by hatred and tragedy? Yet in spite of hearing about climate change for the last 40 years we still refuse to listen.
We arrived home from Cornwall about 5 o’clock. By the time we unpacked the temperature had cooled considerably. I went out on the terrace to listen to evening birdsong, but there was none. Its absence was deafening. As a child, on summer evenings, when the clock struck 7, I was put to bed where I would listen to the birds in the big hawthorn tree outside my room; my favourite lullaby.
I just checked my phone and see that it’s 4:09. It’s Sunday but I have no undone homework, yet I still feel dread. I’m afraid that because we no longer see or hear time passing, we think there is time enough. And I’m afraid that the more we live in virtual reality the less we listen to actual reality. Maybe too many people don’t miss evening birdsong because they’ve never heard it.
The temperature is supposed to diminish tomorrow. I hope the birds come back and sing to me again because I’ve never like the sound of a cuckoo clock.
With love
Maggie
