Sounds of Comfort

"The greatest use of life is to spend it for something that will outlast it." - William James


"There are too many people, and too few human beings." - Robert Zend


"The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook." - William James


Some day I will look at my feeds and there will be a quote from me sitting there. Probably not for another 50 years, but someday. 


Here's Monday's English journal. I wasn't terribly excited about the prompt, but I went with it anyway.




The prompt today is a poem by William Carlos Williams entitled "Dawn." (Who names their kid William Williams?) Our assignment is to describe our favorite sound with vivid imagery. The problem is that I have no idea what my favorite sound is. Fortunately, I haven't known what to write in previous journals and in the course of writing them figured out my answer to the question.
I think choosing the sound of someone's voice is a bit cheap. One person said their favorite sound was the sound made when someone dies in a video game. I don't think that's a sound to savor- I think it's a sound to have fun imitating.
I guess my favorite sound (see? It worked) is rain. Rain drumming on the ground, the roof, while I am inside, preferably reading. It's incredibly comforting. It has to be raining hard, though. No drizzling allowed. All the better if there's thunder.
But why are certain sounds comforting? When they're related to a family member or other loved one (like toast popping in the morning at my house, or the sound of NPR [also in the morning]), sure, that makes sense. But what about other things, like rain?