This Thanksgiving is Dedicated to SOUND

I was listening to radiolab as I was on my way to Toronto yesterday for Thanksgiving, and they were talking about sound. Someone on the show said "Sound is kind of like touching long distance" and that really resonated with me.

A short lesson: We hear when vibrations of frequencies between 15 hertz to about 20,000 hertz reach the inner ear. These vibrations are caught by the ear and reach the eardrum and the vibrations of the eardrum send the sound waves further into the brain. The vibrations pass through a chain of bones in the middle ear to three small fluid filled canals. Embedded between the canals is a spiral shaped organ of Corti. The sensory cells in the organ have thousands of hairlike projections that receive sound vibrations from the middle ear and send them on to the brain via the auditory nerve. In the brain they are recognized and interpreted as specific sounds.

So, in a sense, the vibrations that create sound do travel from one location to touch us deep in our ears. The first sense that a baby develops, while still in the womb, is the sense of hearing. It hears the heartbeat of the mother, the movement of the embryonic fluid, the sounds from outside the thin walls of the womb. A baby, when it is born, recognizes and reacts to harsh, and loud, and soft and soothing sounds.

So I am grateful for Sound.

I am grateful for the silence on a dark night with snow falling, and the only audible sounds the crunching of your feet and your own breathing.

I am grateful for the beautiful sounds created by music. I went to see the Swell Season on Monday night at the Beacon Theater with Melinda, Elly, and Jessica. It was one of those experiences where listening to amazing music just made the world so much better. The combinations of notes and words, beats and melodies, the guitar, piano, violin, cello and second guitar, and voices, especially the voices, joined together to fill the concert hall with passion and beauty. I can't very well describe a sound or a feeling with words. Just listen to your favorite song and soak it in with your eyes closed. That is what it was like. I am constantly amazed by how much better life can seem when good music is added. When I first came to check out NYU, I was completely overwhelmed by the city and stressed about making the right choice on grad school. I was walking down the street, listening to the cacophony of sounds, and then put on my ipod. The music flooded my ears, and my brain calmed down, my breathing relaxed. Focus returned. My thirteenth year was spent listening to a lot of Radiohead, laying on my bed with my pillow covering my head. I think maybe that saved me from sinking even more into my teenage angst, because someone knew what I felt, or someone could express what I felt with words and music perfectly. One of my happiest moments was sitting in at Club Passim with some friends, listening to this amazing folk singer. My heart just about burst with joy. So, I am grateful for music.

I am grateful for the sounds we use to communicate-- talking. Babies begin early on to whine when thy need something or gurgle happily. People use words to communicate ideas, situations, concerns, anything and everything. An intense conversation can linger for weeks. A misunderstanding can be cleared by talking about it and listening to what the other person has to say. Friends reconnect after months with stories of their lives. Grand ideas are hatched in coffee shops. Recently, I was in a short-lived long distance relationship, and during this, I really began to appreciate the utility of the telephone to connect with someone, to attempt to maintain a relationship over thousands of miles over a slight piece of plastic and electric currents. But sound is touching long distance. We weren't there to touch, but the act of talking and connecting on the phone nearly every day built the intimacy to some degree. While I failed at that experiment, I grew to be more grateful for this device that I take for granted every day and the beauty that it brings to my life by allowing me to converse with people I care about and continue building those relationships. I am grateful for conversations.

I am grateful for stories. I am grateful for podcasts. I can see how the radio initially became such a widely popular medium. I know that we live in the golden age of television, but I am a simple girl and love the radio. I love the intimacy of listening to a story on something-- it feels like it was meant just for me, although I know thousands of people are also listening. Maybe it is because it seems so lo-tech-- it is just talking after all, often times just one or two people having a conversation about some world issue or discussing a particular theme. With my ipod I can be anywhere and listening to the BYU speech, or This American Life story, or commentary on Radio West. In my mind, as I listen I am allowed to expand on it and make it my own. I am grateful for radio and people who allow me to interview them so I can put stories out there too.

I am grateful for the sound of little kids asking me to play with them. Especially little Esry today, who convinced me to play barbies with her.

I am grateful to hear the words I love you and to say them.

I am grateful for the sound of cars passing by and Melinda telling me to watch out because otherwise I would have been flattened numerous times.

I am grateful for the sound of the clock ticking at my grandmothers house.

I am grateful for the sound of water and the sound of wind in trees.

I am grateful for the sound of people talking, and people singing, and people just being people.

I am grateful for the sounds of birds, and bees, and dogs and cats and animals everywhere.

I am grateful for stories read out loud. This is one of my favorite things in the world, and it stems from my mom gathering all of us together on Sunday afternoons and reading to us for hours.

I am grateful, I am grateful... I am grateful to hear everything around me. What if I were to lose that sense? I don't know what I would do. But for now, i won't think about it, and instead, I will just go to bed tonight, listening to the sounds of the sleeping house-- people breathing softly, the cat padding around the house, the hum of appliances and clicks of the heater. Tomorrow I will wake up to the sounds of my family moving about, getting ready for school and work and life for another day. I will talk with people and listen to music and my sense of hearing will be so happy.