I Listen: Plunking Myself into the Present in West Africa
GUINEA
I sit and listen. At the outset, I had set this simple yet surprisingly difficult day-to-day task as my “MO” for this trip. The objective was to get out of my head, to reacquaint my gut with the subjective and to use time to listen to Me. How’d that go you ask? On most days, I could swallow a moment whole. Like antennas on the ready, my ears root me here into the experience at hand.
Akin to what sense enhancing substances sell as their superpower, a stretch of time and sheer intention setting lent itself to a heightened hearing that plunked me peacefully into the present.
I hear the wind in my hair. Like the ones you get on your fav rollercoaster ride, I hear the butterflies in my belly within the micromoments of contentment. I listen to the drumming beat of rain on the tin roofs, still so common in Africa. I appreciate the reminders built into the intermittent azaans, signaling a time to pause and praise, if I so choose.
Seemingly tiny yellow, green and blue chickadees chirp eons worth of songs - their complex compendiums remind me that they are older and wiser than these cuties let on.
The hustle of the bazaar, merchants at the market sweating in the sun is a sound that rings on for blocks on end. I hear the intent of the police (some looking more like transformers with their protective gear and guns) upholding or façade-ing their safety and security concerns. And when the lion growled, the reality of that sound reminded me of who really is the King of our jungle.
My body has told me to rest and while I’ve tried to listen and respond, there’s so much living to do out there!
Perhaps I ought to have traded in a few nights of clubbing for sleep, but in the end, don’t we all listen to the YOLO and FOMO themes of our time? Sometimes we actually listen, often however, the signs seem to play in syndicate till the sunsets and we’re ready to face the music.
Perhaps it stems from the source of the sounds – is it the stereotypes and social constructs whose signal I see, or can I softly sidestep into silence, to gather or surrender the secrets within me?
I start to think through that mystery, when suddenly, loudspeakers around me blare into the blazing heat that envelopes me. I hear cars teetering on the brink of potholes. A drosphilia melanogaster flies in circuits around a child, more polite than the mozzie’s threatening buzz that kept me awake all night.
‘Nobody but you’ plays faintly in the distance, yet it seems to be directly directed to this scene. So much for us to imbibe from the place we’re in, to the world we create - it’s up to us to sip it through a straw, swirl it around and dab it on our lips or gulp it down in one swig.
The sand in my toes sound different with flip flops versus when there is red gravel road that needs to be navigated.
I climb over boulders to get to beautiful spots where somehow, my body draws an inhale that uses up the real estate of my lungs … so full and s l o w … that a reset naturally settles in by the time I exhale.
And so is the miracle of tuning into our senses.
May we all hear what we need to and may that constantly help us course correct our path,