Last night as I lay in bed still wide awake at 1am, I listened to the squeakings and squealings of the fruit bats in the trees outside. I hear them most nights and have always liked their funny chitterings. Some nights they alight in the large tree that the local crows call home. Then follows quite lengthy arguments between the bats' chitterings and the crows' cawings over who has the right to use which branches. I think the crows must win because they are always still perched in their tree come morning.
I've often suggested that if I were forced to surrender one of my five senses, the one I'd send gleefully tumbling off the plank is my sense of smell. I'm blessed (and cursed) with what I consider quite an acute sense of smell. I tend to pick up on scents in the air before others notice them, which, depending on the scent, can be a good or bad thing. I find it unpleasant to walk down the washing powder aisle at the supermarket. I hold my breath when entering Myer via the perfume and cosmetics section. I hate to be sat next to someone who wears anything more than a subtle hint of perfume/deoderant/cologne. On the flip side, I love driving past the park by my uni which, in recent times, has been filled with jasmine. Walking past the cookie store at the local shopping centre is delightful. Inhaling the sweet scent of Mum's chameleon rose plant in the front garden is one of life's simple pleasures.
The bats' chitterings last night got me thinking how much I value one of my other senses: hearing. Even disregarding the joys of music, such an integral part of my (and many others) life, there are so many small sounds that I hear throughout a given day that give my spirit a boost. The gentle yet frenetic bubbling sound of my goldfish gobbling their weetbix crumbs each morning. (Bet you didn't know that Aussie fish are Weetbix fish!) The muffled and constant chirps of my budgie, muttering away with her beak planted firmly in her feathers. Raindrops on the roof. My youngest nephew's giggles. The wind through the leaves. A duck's quack. A cheerful voice on the telephone. ...to name a few. :-)
Now to remember what a blessing it is to not live in a silent world next time one of the neighbours revs up the lawn mower at 7:30am on a Sunday morning, or has a rowdy late night party, or the local hoons go for a 2am spin round the block.
You take the good with the bad!
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feeling:
[funkariffic!]
groovin' to: "The Sun" - Maroon 5
last movie viewing: "The Notebook" [cinema]
bookworm currently enjoying: "Joe Cinque's Consolation" - Helen Garner
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4 comments:
Hmmm, note to self. Go easy on the fragrance when I go to the circus.
I suspect that you do not realise that, at this time of year, all that yammering going on in the trees is not bats fighting for best posi on the branch. Noooo sireee, it's the sounds of bat-lovin' coming live, straight into your bedroom!
:-O
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:-O
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I kind of feel, I don't know, dirty about the fact I enjoy listening to their chitterings now!
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:-O
Oh my God! That is too funny! You're such a dirty person ;)
Meanwhile, will you be doing a mini review on The Notebook at all? I want to go see it but would like to know a bit about it first.
I think the worst part of losing my sense of smell would be the subsequent loss of my sense of taste, since the two are so closely related. As a cardbearing member of chocoholics anonymous, that might just be the final nail in the proverbial coffin...
I think my favourite sound is something I once heard in the Tsitsikamma Nature Reserve. Some distance along a trail that meanders over the cliffs next to the sea, you get to look down onto a tiny pebble beach. Everytime a wave retreats it causes the pebbles to bump into each other, creating a rushing, bumping, crescendo sound that just defies description.
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