Listening

On a Saturday afternoon one can find the Trinity River Trail bustling with activity. Runners, walkers, animals, and other sounds of nature all come together to create one harmonious symphony. There are the footsteps of people walking along the crushed limestone path, serving as the steady beat that the rest of the orchestra builds upon. The quickened footsteps of runners jogging down the path add an extra layer of percussion and syncopation to the beat that the walkers trudge out. The cyclists zooming by stand in for the strings, with the number of cyclists in a group determining whether or not there's a soloist playing or a string quartet. Acting as the woodwind section is the sound of the wind rushing through the trees, sometimes at a strong fortissimo, other times barely at a piano, but remaining ever-constant. Finally, the brass comes in. This is represented by the intermittent chirping of cicadas as the trees are cast in and out of the shade by the clouds moving across the sun.

A sound that one would assume to be present is actually missing from my quiet spot. Although I sit right next to the Trinity River, there is no sound of water rushing past. The Trinity River is a passive one, and even though the water is constantly moving, the observer must be using their eyes instead of their ears to witness it. While the symphony is complete without the sound of the river running downstream, one can only wonder how much fuller the sound would be with this addition.

There is one other sound almost constantly present in my quiet spot that one would not expect: music. This music acts as an underscoring to the symphony of the Trinity River Trail. Woodshed Smokehouse is close to my quiet spot, and they often feature a live band on the weekends whose sound carries seemingly for miles down the trail. However, my favorite contribution of underscoring to the Trinity symphony comes from the cyclists. Many of them have some type of speaker attached to their bike so they can listen to music while keeping their ears clear of headphones so they can be aware of their surroundings. Being able to hear snippets of other people's music is a fun game to play while sitting along the Trinity. Is it a song I would recognize? Would I also consider it a fun pump-up song while working out, or is it something totally off the wall? I love the range of songs I hear, with everything from Donna Summers' legendary "Hot Stuff" to an instrumental recording of bagpipes. Every time I go to listen to the Trinity symphony I not only learn more about the nature of the area, but also the people that utilize the trail through the snippets of underscore that each person provides to the orchestra.