Val Dumond

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Articles on Writing, Grammar, and Publishing
by Val Dumond

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Val writes articles on grammar, the art and science of writing, and publishing, for budding writers and seasoned authors alike. These articles are not only informative and educational, they're entertaining - written as only Val can. Enjoy this latest of her articles:

The Sounds of Life
by Val Dumond
© Copyright 2009

I woke up this morning amid a dream where I was enjoying the sounds in the Luxemburg Gardens in Paris. I lay still, to hear the sounds around me: wind whipping rain against the window, the whoosh of passing cars, the neighbor's car coming to life, a twig scraping the side of the house.

I share these with you and urge you to listen. Listen to what surrounds you. And if nothing surrounds you, listen to the beat of your heart. In a recent yoga class, in which we practice deep breathing, I heard the distinct sound of ocean waves washing onto an Atlantic Ocean beach.

My mind wandered to other sounds that came to life at that moment:

• The ominous rumble heard just before the shaking of a western Washington earthquake.
• The jolt of angry thunder during a Wisconsin summer rainstorm.
• The stunning serenity that fills the eye of a Florida hurricane.
• The whisper of a welcome breeze in the midst of a Kansas heat wave.
• The utter silence accompanying a gigantic snowfall on a Colorado evening.
• The song that lurks behind a heavy spring downpour, played out on the rocks of the Brittany Coast.
• The rippling of gentle waves against an Egyptian felucca sailing up the Nile.
• The crunch of crisp autumn leaves under your boots on a walk through a maple forest.

The sound that has come across the loudest to me is one found in a manuscript written by an Iraqi woman about the terror of her last days before fleeing Baghdad. She wrote:

""It was an absolute and completely terrifying silence, but a silence that was unreal; we did not hear what we saw happen in front of our eyes. We only saw things happening -- but without the sound.

"First we saw the stone wall beside us bowing and then straightening again. The locked doors opened violently; exploded window glass whipped out from the closed curtains and fell. The glass of the kitchen door exploded inward, but still we heard nothing. Absolutely nothing, not even the radio voice.

"This all happened in mere seconds, but we didn't hear any explosion, or anything outside, not even the glass breaking -- nothing of the power which caused this destruction. Sound struck us when the broken glass began to rain down to the ground. We heard no bomb exploding, we did not hear the smashing of the doors or the shattering of the windows -- we could see but not hear the moment of impact. We were ground zero."

Learn to listen to the sounds around you, the earsplitting ones and the very softest. Discover the joy of hearing the whispers of life.

Of all the sounds on earth, the most beautiful of all remains that of a dear someone murmuring your name, just before the words, "I love you."

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