Sounds of Silence - June 23,2018

Sounds of Silence June 23, 2018

For most of my life, I have lived near air force installations and listened to the buzz of planes in the skies above.  I remember the sonic booms of the super sonic bombers from Barksdale Air Force Base as a child.  Our house would shake from the boom of the plane passing overhead breaking the sound barrier. Eventually, environmental concerns outlawed this practice but I remember it so vividly.  A few years later, I moved to Texas where I lived right by Carswell Air Force Base.  Planes were always in the air.  I remember one particular incident where  I was walking my dogs on a field near my apartment and a formation of fighters flew so low and fast overhead that my Cocker Spaniels lay down in the field. Then I moved to Colorado and lived near Buckley Air National Guard as well as the flight path to DIA and the smaller Centennial airports. Even when I visit my brother in Texas, he lives on the flight path to Dallas Ft. Worth Airport.  We sit in his backyard in the evening and he tells me what plane is flying over.  I always laugh about that because I have flown more times in one year than he has flown in his life but he loves planes.  I could not tell one from the other.
Now, I know I am supposed to be writing  about my time in Armenia so you might be thinking what this first paragraph was all about.  Even here in Armenia,  I have listened to planes.  In Ayntap, where I lived my first three months, Russian helicopters and MIGs flew overhead every day.  I was a little worried when they seemed to be more frequents during the peaceful protests that led to a governmental change, but nothing untoward happened.  But last night, I was sitting on my front porch in the little village in the northwest part of Armenia where I will spend the next two years reading and enjoying the cool summer evening.  I set my book down to take a sip of water and thought to myself, "What is that sound?".  It was quiet like I have not experienced in years.

I just sat there for maybe ten minutes and strained my ears to appreciate the sounds of this little mountain town.  I realized that I could not hear any street noise.  I hear it during the day where I work in the center of town but I had not noticed before there were no auto sounds except the occasional car or truck straining to climb the hill I live  on.  If there was traffic in the village below, it was so minimal that I could not hear it.   I have lived on roads so busy that I had to be buy triple pane windows and heavy curtains to keep the noise out. But here, it was quiet.
As I listened, I heard the sounds of neighbors talking on their porches or in their gardens.  Now my Armenian is not good enough to know most of what I heard, but I did little voyeuristic.  One thing I truly noticed was the beauty of the spoken language.  I had at first thought it to be rather harsh but hearing it spoken easily in conversation, I noticed the rhythmic melodic qualities of it.  The same statement in Armenian can have different meanings by the intonation and accentuated syllables.  I continue my quest to understand the language better.
Then, of course, there are the sounds of the animals.  Like in America, I heard dogs barking about something in the distance.  Then I heard the clucking of the chickens who live in the coop in the backyard of the house where I live.  The rooster who lives across the road was having a conversation with a rooster several houses away.  One would crow and the other would answer.  That is a morning ritual as well.  Cows occasionally mooed from above and below.  Pigs made those grunting sounds that they make as they root their pins. It was too late in the evening for songbirds but they are plentiful in the morning.
I began reaching in to my memory of my three weeks here and realized I have not heard or seen a plane since I arrived here.  I assume that we are so far off whatever flight pattern that goes to Yerevan that I will probably not see or hear a plane for the two years I am here.  I wonder what it will feel like when I visit Yerevan and hear the hustle bustle noise of a big city with planes overhead.  Having lived that way for most of my life, will it feel familiar or will I long to go back to this quiet place?