Soundwalk

WHAT I HEAR

The loudest sounds I hear just a few blocks away from Hunter college is the traffic.  For instance, the rattling of a truck as it passes over small potholes and the high pitched squeaks it makes as it suddenly breaks for a red light.  There is a faint honk off in the distant from a car coming behind me, but not as faint from behind is the rolling of the skinny rubber wheels of a bicycle on pavement.  This bike has a conjunction of sounds: the peddling sounds like a slight, rhythmic, buzzing noise and the switching of gears, which the biker does, make a muted clanking noise.  When it reaches me just behind me, I hear a sound signal, which is the ringing of the bike’s bell, similar to the bell used by the receptionist at hotels.
I notice different kinds of shoes and different gaits produce different sounds.  One that stood out was a man’s Timberlands boots scraping the cement floor — the rubber from the heel of the boots scratching, the pavement.
As I pass different buildings, I notice some buildings have regular glass doors, and others have glass revolving doors.  The revolving doors have a soft, deflating sound, as if air is getting compressed each time it is being used, while the regular doors produce a small creaking noise, sometimes barely audible, when opened.

Before this soundwalk, it never occurred to me just how reliant I am on my sense of eyesight to view the world, and how seeing the world through eyesight can make me blind to all the sounds surrounding me.  

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