Antigua, Willoughby Bay. The waves here are gentle. They slide in, nestle against the sand, pause for a millisecond, pull away, only to return, relentless, like love-struck suitors who can’t stay away from the beloved. The trade winds bump against the palmetto leaves, which rattle and click against each other, gossiping,whispering, never still. These are the only sounds here, created by the sea and the ever present wind. Antigua is a sailor’s joy, a place where there is almost always enough wind to fill a sail.
Though I am not a sailor, I love the conversation of the sea and the winds. At night, I leave the doors to my bedroom open so I can spy on them. Sometimes rain adds its voice to the murmur, tapping against the deck with its news from the sky. it is almost never too cold to close the doors.
As I listen, I hear the waves speak of whales they have seen, hundreds of miles away; of the porpoises and dolphins leaping toward the sun on the other side of Panama, of octopi and albacore, sharks and mackerel and sole. Sometimes, the wind tells stories about humans slashing jungles, burning forests, killing and killing. When it speaks of this, it sighs, and cries.
It says “Beware, take care. What you humans do will not stop me. I am wind, eternal, forever a part of the cosmos, and so is the sea. These gentle waves and I will still be here when you are gone. We will rebuild the earth. Listen to what we say.”
I will try to remember this space in time when I return to Raleigh. The sounds are different there. Leaf blowers growl at top volume. Cars, trucks , fire engines, and ambulances race along the highway, more than a mile away. Delivery vans stop at various homes in the neighborhood, and of course the ubiquitous US Postal van creeps around the blocks. All of these trigger my ever protective dog to race to the window to bark furiously, to warn us of danger.
But there is also bird song. It is spring, almost. Cardinals flit among the azalea and rhododendron bushes, Carolina wrens start looking for nest sites, and occasionally an owl’s mournful hoot echoes across the garden at dusk. Wind sings there, too, gliding through the blossoms of the dogwood and red-bud, the needles of the pines. So I will listen for the voices of nature I can find, and accept noisy humanity’s building, cutting, battering; its bulldozing, planting, destroying, changing in its futile attempt to control nature, and to be grateful that I am still alive to hear it.