Driving around the other day, I was hurrying from one errand to the next when a small voice from the car seat in the back spoke up, “What was that?”
“What was what?”
“That noise”
“What noise?”
clink
“That noise”
“I think that was the handle of that metal bucket clinking against the bucket.” I replied as we drove over a small bump in the road.
“That was the bucket,” she repeated, letting herself know what the noise was.
clink
“That was the bucket,” she told me. She didn’t want me to worry about what that sound was. That sound that I hadn’t even heard until she had pointed it out.
What else was I missing?
“What was that noise?”
“Was it the bucket?”
“No! The other noise!”
I tried to hear past the sound of the air conditioner, the low hum of the motor, and of course, the metal bucket.
There was someone mowing their lawn nearby. There was a loud motorcycle passing through. There was the rhythmic click of the blinker. Even the sound of my own deep breathing as I dealt with a preschooler’s relentless curiosity. So many noises I had been ignoring.
What noises have you been ignoring?
Just for a moment, think like a preschooler. What is that noise? What about that one? What else can you hear when you are deeply listening?
~Aline Harris
