The winter temperatures have facilitated an act of listening quite unlike that experienced during the warmer seasons. A soundscape of intense subtlety has emerged. Time spent indoors has yielded an array of sounds often unnoticed during the routine of daily life. It provides a useful lesson.

At a local video shop the buzz of a neon sign awaits the attentive listener. Peeling back the layers of car and pedestrian noise the quiet electrical sound rises to prominence:

In a kitchen a small speck of organic matter burns on the bottom of a cooking pot. The moment passes quickly and is easily missed. It has a calming effect in what is an otherwise frantic space:

Listening to these tiny sounds reminds me of the way we fail to pay attention to other aspects of our lives. How often do we overlook an object’s value before we have truly spent time assessing its worth?

We have all failed to value people due to uninformed first impressions, dismissed places without spending time exploring their hidden treasures, walked past a work of art with only a cursory glance, returned a book to a bookshelf without reading more than a few of its pages.

These quiet interior sounds remind me to consider the world with more sensitivity. These quiet interior sounds remind me to listen.