Momentary Blindness - Aventine Hill

The water from the trees above me drips onto the back of my neck like a slowly dying fountain. It’s cold and, without the sun that was out just a moment ago, unwelcome. All I can smell is rain on the damp wood and stones around me. It’s calming and makes me feel that, as long as the smell remains, the world around me will perpetually seem like it is just entering early morning. The associations that such a smell brings transforms what I assume to be the din of distant traffic into the roar of a waterfall. The modern world feels far away surrounded by the residue of rain.

Each time the wind blows, the tree above me takes on the role of the sky again and sprinkles its drops. Birds chirp overhead, responding to each other just as the mother and child to my left do. Their quick Italian sounds just as flowing and natural as the traffic-turned-waterfall does. The crunch of gravel beneath feet creates an echo of the pittering of raindrops.

The wings of a bird beat near me, somewhere overhead. It is a soft sound, but one that manages to be louder than the gruff wheels of a suitcase being rolled across the gravel. Once again, nature dominates here, surrounded by trees. It is the birds that give me a sense of space through the distance of their calls. It is also the raindrops and their measured falls. Depth now only exists in retreating sounds and where a raindrop hits the ground in relation to me, sitting on this bench.

(5/27/19, Aventine Hill)