A Beautiful Noise

Let's try this again. I just lost an entire post. Hit the wrong button, or something and poof it was gone. Now it will have to be a more modest posting--

Neil Diamond has invaded my head. He is not often there, but when he does come to visit he is often hard to shake. His music is infectious. I walk with Lindsay along the beach at the foot on the bluffs, trying to focus on the sounds of the waves, the rustle of the wind through the bushes and trees, the music of the bird calls; but all I hear is Neil's tribute to the sounds of the City.

It was my fault, of course. I had invited him in. I'd been thinking about a recent Friday Shootout on the sounds in our community. And suddenly, there was Neil singing.

And singing.

In my head.

However much I might yearn for the peace of the country, I am a city boy, and the sounds of the City I love fit me as well as a hand in a glove....




The weather was mild enough yesterday for me to go out on our back deck and listen to the sounds of the night: the distant whistle of the GO train, the hammering of the guy three houses over who's building something (what do you build outdoors in the winter?), the sirens from the fire station a kilometer away, the sirens from the EMV on Kingston Rd a kilometer in the other direction, the roar of the 747 passing over head. Ah, and breathe in the taste of that air (cough, cough)!"

Alright, I love the city that I know, where I was raised and lived most of my life. But I love the country too, where I lived for more than a decade. Like Neil, but in a more modest way, I'm caught between two shores.

Or maybe I just need to go back to bed.