A fountain of sound
Nov. 22nd, 2005 05:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
icarusA fountain of sound.
I envy the science students the fifth floor.
I would take more science classes just to be able to walk those halls between classes, looking out over downtain, the bay and the misty Olympic mountains. A botany lab occupies a good part of east wall near the study area, so the light is green and the air forest-like.
Even though Seattle's been blanketed in London fog for days, taking an Astronomy test was a pleasure. I finished, weaved through the halls (no one walks in a straight line here as we're too busy looking out the window), passed the botany lab, and then stepped into the loud echoing stairway. There are skylights and five floors of stone and metal. Usually the clang of ordinary-sized doors boom like the gates of Minas Tirith had just slammed shut. Voices over-run each other as people try to hold conversations.
Today, the echo was filled with what sounded like a chorus. Latin it sounded, medieval and church-like. People kept glancing over the balconies to try to see who had transformed our ugly stairs into the Sistine chapel. I was supposed to go to the fourth floor but I scrambled down flight after flight until I found them:
Two women, singing on the first floor. Filling it like a chorus. A random stranger joined them, tenor, struggling to find a harmony. At a break the one woman said, "Everyone should learn how to sing."
I was late to class, but I don't care.
I envy the science students the fifth floor.
I would take more science classes just to be able to walk those halls between classes, looking out over downtain, the bay and the misty Olympic mountains. A botany lab occupies a good part of east wall near the study area, so the light is green and the air forest-like.
Even though Seattle's been blanketed in London fog for days, taking an Astronomy test was a pleasure. I finished, weaved through the halls (no one walks in a straight line here as we're too busy looking out the window), passed the botany lab, and then stepped into the loud echoing stairway. There are skylights and five floors of stone and metal. Usually the clang of ordinary-sized doors boom like the gates of Minas Tirith had just slammed shut. Voices over-run each other as people try to hold conversations.
Today, the echo was filled with what sounded like a chorus. Latin it sounded, medieval and church-like. People kept glancing over the balconies to try to see who had transformed our ugly stairs into the Sistine chapel. I was supposed to go to the fourth floor but I scrambled down flight after flight until I found them:
Two women, singing on the first floor. Filling it like a chorus. A random stranger joined them, tenor, struggling to find a harmony. At a break the one woman said, "Everyone should learn how to sing."
I was late to class, but I don't care.
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Date: 2005-11-23 03:04 am (UTC)If I ever come to see you, will you take me to that spot, so I can see how it feels to fill the space with sound?
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Date: 2005-11-23 03:20 am (UTC)Icarus
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Date: 2005-11-23 06:05 am (UTC)I once sang in a medieval cathedral that had astonishing acoustics: the sound went up to the roof and bounced back down so quickly that you were singing against yourself (not sure if that makes sense), as if you'd been multiplied. It felt amazing.
Advent starts this Sunday, and I've been doing extra rehearsals for our Christmas concert. As a result, the only subject lines that occur to me for LJ posts are in Latin. I've been refraining from posting at all, since that seems to pretentious. :-)
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Date: 2005-11-23 06:08 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-12-07 09:18 am (UTC)Icarus
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Date: 2005-11-23 07:10 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-11-23 08:55 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-11-23 04:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-11-24 01:40 am (UTC)(Thanks for the lovely images...)
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Date: 2005-11-29 05:07 am (UTC)and the astronomy lab.. what would you do??