Nice sounds – there for the noticing:

Church bells in the distance,

A smile in someone’s words,

Beautiful music,

A child’s sweet voice,

Train whistles at night,

Bird song at daybreak,

A baby’s belly laugh,

Wind in the tree tops,

Tires crunching on gravel,

Sharpening of a pencil,

A gurgling brook rushing downstream,

The bounce of a basketball and

the squeak of shoes on hardwood,

The snort of a startled deer,

A tennis ball hitting the strings of a racket,

The crunchy squeak of snow,

And, lest we forget, the sound of nothing at all.

Silence – ever elusive – why are we so afraid of

being alone with the stillness of our thoughts?