Home

Tonight my home is large and noisy again.
A few nights ago, the heavy snow placed a coat of silence over the city. Snow dampened the sounds everywhere, from the edge of the city, to its core. The snow also shrunk my home to the distance from the nearest streetlight to the circumference of its glow. There was no traffic on the streets. Looking through the window at the snow erasing the sidewalks and side streets, I had a blanketed feeling too. I felt a quietness, free of "needless anxieties" for at least a while.

But now, the storm has moved on and my home is filled with the sounds of trucks and ambulance sirens and car horns. Even the radiator pipes sound like they are being assaulted by sledgehammers,accompanied by ominous timpani sounds and, hopefully, heat. Looking out the window, my home extends past the Sears Tower and the John Hancock Building to the airplane lights far in the distance. I pace around to a bass drum pulse, the beat picking up, waiting for the next alarm.