Sound Walk
As someone who has their headphones in most of the time, I miss so much of the sound that surrounds me every day. During my commute from Staten Island I can manage to listen to a full-length album one and a half times, watch three twenty-minute episodes of a TV show, or an hour’s worth of YouTube videos. What I discovered was that without listening to any of those things, there was so much to be heard. I had originally planned to spend an hour walking in Manhattan. As I waited for the bus, I decided to take my headphones off and listen to my surroundings despite not being in Manhattan yet. The first remarkable sound I remember hearing was the sound of birds chirping in a tree somewhere on the same block as my bus stop. I couldn’t figure out exactly where the noise was coming from, but I couldn’t believe how loud it was. I’m used to bird sounds, especially living near the woods, but in that moment they were so much more than background noise. I still can’t believe how loud ...