The familiar sound
The phone rang. It was one of those unplanned moments when my friend decided to call another friend, just to surprise him. The call connected, and before I could think, I said, "hello." What followed was a burst of recognition on the other side. My name, said with a kind of innocent, childlike excitement that instantly makes you smile. I didn’t speak for a few seconds. I just listened. That moment stayed with me longer than I expected. Maybe because of how something as ordinary as a voice could feel so deeply personal. It made me think about how much sound shapes the way we experience life. We rarely notice it, though. Sound is always around. The sound of a ceiling fan, a song playing faintly in another room, the chatter of people passing by. Yet there are certain sounds that seem to rise above everything. The ones that reach you no matter where you are. Like how you suddenly notice the birds on a quiet afternoon, only because the rest of the world has gone still. How, duri...