This week I'm reading Cutting For Stone by Abraham Verghese, which is about the medical staff of a mission hospital in Ethiopia. Last night, this passage resounded with me for its elegant narration of finding peace in your life-
"There were other noises she became attuned to in her new-mother state. The thwack of wet cloth on the washing stone. The clothesline sagging with diapers (banners to fecundity) and raising a flapping alarm before a rain squall, sending Almaz and Rosina racing outside. The glass-harp notes of feeding bottles clinking together in the boiling water. Rosina's singing, her constant chatter. Almaz clanging pots and pans...these sounds were the chorale of Hema's contentment."
The main character in the paragraph, Hema, is a very independent woman who had previously focused on nothing other than her career as a doctor. Through a strange set of circumstances, she suddenly becomes obligated to adopt a set of twins that she helped deliver.
In that paragraph, she begins to discover the difference in the loving care that she gives her patients and the loving care of a mother. She embraces that role, makes peace with it.
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I've lived by myself for a little more than four months now, and the family-like percussion of a household- a baby's coos, wails, adorable laughter; a mother's chiding, multiple sets of music or media playing at the same time, friends on the balcony- has changed, leaving space to notice different noises.
The dryer tumbling clothes softly is an escape of the hassle and anxiety of laundromats. The microwave ding bringing me a steaming hot chocolate, the last rumble of thunder just before the rain starts, a ringing phone connecting you to one of the people you wish most to talk to, and a quiet mind that isn't cluttered with worry for where the next meal is coming. These are a few of my sounds, my chorale of contentment.
photo credit: waI:ti
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