As I sit here in our living room, you could hardly call for more peace.

And yet ...

a distant dog bark,

a plane high overhead,

the sound of my hard disk in my study as it runs a backup,

our wind chimes moving softly,

the sensation that I can hear through my neck bones as I rotate my head,

the scraping of the hard edge of a low palm tree against the window and the flutter of that same leaf as a waft of wind hits it,

the rustle of the wind in the big trees in our back yard,

a passing car,

wind chimes from neighbors' houses in the canyon,

squeaks from my own stomach,

bird song,

the sound of my own swallowing,

the occasional tearing noise as the bare skin on my back rubs against the leather sofa,

the crack of the paper in the book on which I'm writing as it snaps into place when I move the pen

the scratch of the ball of the pen on the paper,

the swich of my hand against the paper as I move the pen,

the occasional sigh from our big dog and the lighter sigh from the little one,

the lightest sound of my own breath,

once in a while a rumble from the freeway makes its way through the valley,

a noise as of sudden and minute metal expansion from the kitchen,

and behind it all the background high note of silence which is always in my hearing when I pay it attention.

All of a sudden it feels as if I'm in a symphony of sounds. Then the moment passes and it's just the sound of peace again.