Sights and Sounds of Contentment

I lay in bed this morning listening as the garbage truck stopped and started in front of each house on our street. These sounds can often go unnoticed if we don't pay close attention. To join the cacophony, distant birds and an occasional neighbor's heat pump wound up and wound down again to silence.

My earliest memories include the sound of distant trains that would make their midnight passage through Fullerton toward faraway destinations. I wondered about fabled hobos who may have found shelter in one of the train's rail cars. Well, maybe by the mid-sixties hobos didn't even exist anymore. But the sounds I heard outside, when everything else was still, made a big impression on me and stirred my imagination.

In my southern California childhood home, we never used an air conditioner; the windows were always cranked out in the spring and summer to allow the circulation of fresh air. The only thing between me and the outside was a dusty screen. I fell asleep many nights to the sound of rustling leaves and cats as they slithered through the bushes below my bedroom window. The smell of fresh air always brings me back to those growing-up days in Fullerton--fresh bed sheets from the line always felt so good after a hot bath; the scent of bar soap on my arm as I slept added to my feeling of safety and security--don't ask me why.

Our homes are closed up tight nowadays and are less and less connected to the outside world. The summer sounds of lawn mowers and hissing sprinklers are often drowned-out by loud TVs and iPod headphones. I miss the music of children playing and the warm outside air as it shifts through the screen door to ruffle the curtains. Those are the sights and sounds of contentment to me, sounds that let me know everything is all right.