Saturday morning I woke up at 7 and followed a definite course of action: push ups, patio plants, Jack Johnson, Colombian coffee, Miami Herald, e-mail. After an hour I put on my running shoes and headed down to jog.
The clock had just struck 8:00 a.m. but the sun, like this jogger, was already up and about. Good thing the people's lane at the complex was patrolled by a gauntlet of trees and shrubs aiming to protect joggers' attitude from the clutches of an angry sun. I stretched using the power pole as my resistance, and as I pushed, A, the Vitenamese kid from the other building jogged past me and screamed, Timbeeerrr! Of course he was teasing that I may topple the pole over, but there was error in the yell. He should have said, Concreeeete!
I was pacing myself. Walk before you jog is a pace even a non-jogger knows. Before I went about my business I looked around. The city was quiet. The sky was blue. Everything was clear and quietude was the temporary order of the day. I closed my eyes for a second, took a deep breath, and in the manner of Thoreau I fronted the essential facts of life.
Miami is a city that wakes up late during weekends. You can expect the streets to be semi-deserted until close to noon when people rise up and go to their favorite diners. 8 a.m., therefore, is a good time to listen to the other sound of Miami half a day away from the rhythm of salsa and reggaeton.
While in that zone - a phase that a younger culture might describe as the emote - I heard a sound not unlike the hooting of an owl calling out in the forest. I may have heard the sound before but this time it was crisper, undrowned by a city that was still asleep. It must be a sound that Miami gets familiar with during the summer but which somehow it refused to identify. I was so intrigued with the harmony that for a moment I placed it within the description of Tennyson's as the moan of doves in immemorial elms.
Still walking, I heard another sound and this time it emanated from my right. I drew my sight towards the source and found four green parakeets holed up in a crevice of a tree large enough to fit a human head. The birds were making chattering calls that were jarring, almost strident, as if they were adolescents in the process of sharing experiences of a first wet dream. Parakeets populate South Florida during the summer because it mimics the climate of the Amazonia - hot and humid - and in that respect it is safe to say that a Miami summer is a piercing summer.
In reality, universally, summer is the season of sound. Over at the NPR I listened to an interview of a writer commissioned to do a feature on the images of Provence during the summer. The writer said something like, If you wanted an accurate portrayal of Provence during the summer, I must write The Sound Of Provence instead. He was, of course, referring to the famous cries of crickets and cicadas in that lovely Southern French province - during summer.
In South Florida, sound is a true aspect from the months beginning in June - and I'm not just referring to the hum of an airconditioner at full blast, the clanging of ice in a glass of margarita, or the shrieks of tropical birds in varying decibels. South Florida sound is much grander than that.
Take the case of the sound of a bullhorn which you'll hear whenever you get near a football field. Summer is the time of football practice ans since South Florida is a goldmine of fine football players, the bellowing sound of a bullhorn - signifying the start of a specific play - could also mean an announcement of the birth of a new football champion.
Finally, there is the sound so common yet is considered the scariest known to man: thunder. South Florida is meterologically and ecologically eclectic, in part due to the dynamic structure of the Everglades and the great bodies of water almost surrounding it. With high precipitation, it always rains during the summer, and combined with heat and humidity, it is not surprising for Miami to be known as the lightining capital of the world. The end result is, of course, claps of thunder.
There are times when, in the middle of the night, thunder booms throughout the city and sound waves reverberate heavily as to make the security alarms of buildings and cars to go off. In an ungodly hour, the entire city then experiences a spontaneous noise barrage.
The summer, however, is about to end. And in this few remaining weeks of quirky sounds, you can bet I will keep a close tab to all things possibler to hear.
Listen closely and learn. Knowledge is always music to my ears.
