Vibrations
Is it just me, or do you feel it too? Cities vibrate, on a discernible level. My body parts tend to notice. Vibrations are everywhere, always. People who live in cities seem to be unaware of these wobbles, shimmies and shakes, or they have learned to ignore them. Something that’s always there in your environment, something you do not perceive as a threat, tends to take residence in a comfortable spot in your sub-conscious mind - like continual traffic noise or the smell of a certain industry, or a floor gently swaying. But I am an outlander! I can feel the vibration of highway traffic through the soles of my feet. In an LRT station I can feel the train resonating on its tracks well before I see it. The floor in a mall’s upper level moves almost imperceptibly to the rhythm of hundreds of footfalls. Elevators tingle. Escalators shimmy. Music, especially drumming, resonates in my chest. When I step from a vehicle I continue to feel it’s forward motion. Road construction crews hammer away at the very base I stand on. White noise fills all the spaces. Sounds from the natural world barely penetrate my ears. Everything thrums. Everyone hurries, arriving in time to wait.
I have just journeyed home after 8 days in the heart of the empire, stateside. I jumped out of my motel bed at 4:00am Monday morning, waited a few minutes in the lobby for my air porter, zoomed on a series of fast moving freeways through dense fog, got temporarily lost amidst the air terminal’s construction upgrade, checked in, snaked my way through security, went down 2 levels on an escalator, took a speeding train to the second of three concourses, ascended from the underground on 2 more escalators, rode 3 sets of moving sidewalks to gate 52 of 95, then sat down to wait 4 hours until my plane boarded. The entire airport vibrated.
My plane was a small jet, about 100 passengers. As I waited I couldn’t help but notice my minority status - only 4 women! Weird? Must have been that Monday morning shuttle for the suits to return to their company’s far north connection. The plane’s g-force pushed me back in my seat as we roared down the runway, then a bump and that slight sensation of weightlessness as we lifted off. A two hour flight, then a two and a half hour drive home. I thought I’d sleep on the final leg of this journey, but couldn’t.
Alberta looked bleak to me, the brownish gray Spring arriving with a few patches of dirty snow remaining at roadsides, the sun refusing to penetrate the clouds. It didn’t feel like home until I was surrounded by farms, the bustling industrial areas left behind.
At home the sun was out. I tucked myself into our willow loveseat in a sheltered corner up by the house and soaked in its healing rays. Two geese were courting on the frozen lake. I heard no sound but the calls of birds and the flap of their wings, a dog barking, overnight the patter of a gentle rain.
It is quiet. It is still. I am no longer vibrating. Ahhhhh.
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mltipton.blogspot.com, https://www.facebook.com/Northof543/, March 28, 2019
I apologize, my blog app no longer supports photos unless I navigate my way through some google change I haven’t been able to figure out. If you want to see pics with my posts you’ll have to find me on Facebook :(
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