Day 218 Sounding Up

July 15, 2015

(This is part of a 365 project during my 70^th year where I write and illustrate a blog on each day’s gift.)

 

Somewhere up there, hidden tree frogs sing a refreshing chorus.

A Maryland summer, my least favorite season, constricts the spirit with its hot breath of heavy humid air. In the spring, I always dread closing of the windows to keep the uncomfortable weather outside. A retreat inside to the cool air conditioning feels good at first but then creates a void that empties the spirit with an absence of natural sounds. 

I look forward to evenings like tonight when the day’s heat dissipates and the air becomes light and breezy. I love to walk, especially when everyone else is asleep. It is a time to clear my mind of the clutter of civilization and to neutralize the pollution of tangled thoughts. In the spring, just before we entomb ourselves, I always look forward to hearing the first sounds of the peepers. 

Now in mid-July, the tree frogs are performing their nightly chorus. It is a great pleasure to walk about the neighborhood with the tree frogs at high volume, feeling tonight’s cool breeze and looking up at the clear sky. It is a time when the neighborhood humans have abandoned living sounds and fallen asleep to sounds of the Late Night Show or a spouse’s snores. Background television sounds, hums of air conditioners and the chorus of tree frogs are all hypnotic but the former numb the soul and the latter— songs of the tree frogs—refreshes.

Far outside the city the tree frogs were calling her, and the deep, rhythmic pulse of their voices set the blood flow to her heart." Ann Patchett

My gift today is a tree frog concert.

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> Day 219 Before the Buzz

You can find links to my other posts on this project here:

http://bjschupp.blogspot.com/2014/12/365-gifts.html