There are times in our life that we miss someone, something, or some place. I think it is a perfect time in my life to miss my home. The home I left with anger, despair and riot. The home I hope I will go back to it and see it different.
But how do we miss a place? How is the process of missing shaped within our feelings? Is being in a special spot means that much to us, or is it the feeling we had at the spot that counts? What did I feel there in my home that I do not feel here and therefore miss it? What is the exact experience, I can’t recreate here? I’m sure it’s different for each individual but mine I guess, is the sounds.
Last night I was trying to go to sleep and I couldn’t. I tried to remember how would I fight a sleepless night back home and I remembered a series of sound effects in a row, exactly like a recorded sound track. It made me so excited all of a sudden and the same time made me feel so far away because I don’t hear those sounds in Toronto anymore.
It was a narrow brook near our apartment which you couldn’t hear the sound of it until midnight. When the alley was dark and no car or motorcycle passed, you could hear the water flowing down the brook and feel like living in a cottage in the middle of a forest. The wind blew through the trees and sometimes an empty can of soup would make such a joyful song flowing along the little brook that you would have missed it if some nights, it didn’t came along.
And Then there were crows. Yes! There are no crows in this city. I can’t believe I’m missing their ugly sounds. You think it’s scary to wake up in the morning by the crow sound, but I actually liked it. Their sounds meant that morning is here, or maybe rain is coming soon. Some how early morning in my memories mixed with black crows flying over the sky and dark clouds preparing to shower rain on you which was a rare thing in my city and therefore very special and happy time for me.
I went to a university with big tall trees and thousands of crows nesting on them. They were old and surely they've been witness of generations after generation graduating and changing their lives.
So the crow sound is my joyful sound. All my good memories come with it, all the good time of college. …
And just now, I remembered I had this weird habit of recording the sounds around me by my cell phone. Wish I still had that phone. I had sounds of river. Some old man called “darvish” who came in our alley every Saturday, singing and blessing everyone with his powerful voice, the man who sold flowers door by door, the other guy who sold salt and would buy the extras of breads.
Comparing now, it seems I lived in chaos, a noisy city and of course this quiet nights in Toronto freaks me out. There is nothing but the sound of airplane passing in the sky and frequent sirens that makes me think someone is feeling bad right now. And here there are seagulls. I have nothing against seagulls but I don’t share any memories with them, not bad ones anyway and maybe I’m in luck!
Who knows maybe someday I will miss these sounds of Toronto specially the wind.
But how do we miss a place? How is the process of missing shaped within our feelings? Is being in a special spot means that much to us, or is it the feeling we had at the spot that counts? What did I feel there in my home that I do not feel here and therefore miss it? What is the exact experience, I can’t recreate here? I’m sure it’s different for each individual but mine I guess, is the sounds.
Last night I was trying to go to sleep and I couldn’t. I tried to remember how would I fight a sleepless night back home and I remembered a series of sound effects in a row, exactly like a recorded sound track. It made me so excited all of a sudden and the same time made me feel so far away because I don’t hear those sounds in Toronto anymore.
It was a narrow brook near our apartment which you couldn’t hear the sound of it until midnight. When the alley was dark and no car or motorcycle passed, you could hear the water flowing down the brook and feel like living in a cottage in the middle of a forest. The wind blew through the trees and sometimes an empty can of soup would make such a joyful song flowing along the little brook that you would have missed it if some nights, it didn’t came along.
And Then there were crows. Yes! There are no crows in this city. I can’t believe I’m missing their ugly sounds. You think it’s scary to wake up in the morning by the crow sound, but I actually liked it. Their sounds meant that morning is here, or maybe rain is coming soon. Some how early morning in my memories mixed with black crows flying over the sky and dark clouds preparing to shower rain on you which was a rare thing in my city and therefore very special and happy time for me.
I went to a university with big tall trees and thousands of crows nesting on them. They were old and surely they've been witness of generations after generation graduating and changing their lives.
So the crow sound is my joyful sound. All my good memories come with it, all the good time of college. …
And just now, I remembered I had this weird habit of recording the sounds around me by my cell phone. Wish I still had that phone. I had sounds of river. Some old man called “darvish” who came in our alley every Saturday, singing and blessing everyone with his powerful voice, the man who sold flowers door by door, the other guy who sold salt and would buy the extras of breads.
Comparing now, it seems I lived in chaos, a noisy city and of course this quiet nights in Toronto freaks me out. There is nothing but the sound of airplane passing in the sky and frequent sirens that makes me think someone is feeling bad right now. And here there are seagulls. I have nothing against seagulls but I don’t share any memories with them, not bad ones anyway and maybe I’m in luck!
Who knows maybe someday I will miss these sounds of Toronto specially the wind.
