Simple, but Loud, Joy!

With Janice in the States, I am spending an exorbitant amount of each day’s early hours alone in the house. Most times, the television is my rattling, prattling, background audio companion, running off at the mouth, reporting in both English and Greek, the pressing problems and acute concerns of our ash-cloud interrupted, deficit-ridden, confidence lacking, globally warmer, much-conflicted world.

This morning, I remembered my often overlooked electronic companion, the CD player and that Celtic CD with the matching rapturous harp melodies and the energetic jigs played on a liberated Irish fiddle. I “juiced” the volume up loud on that thing, the better to hear it while in the shower and afterwards.

A few minutes later, dressed and ready for the day, I left the place for the run to the bank and to pay the bills, inadvertently leaving that machine running at full blast. Standing in the hallway, pondering the critical existential choice between the stairs or the elevator, I surprised myself with the abrupt realization that, from the neighbor’s perspective, the music was, shall we say, a little loud. Knowing that the queue at the bank was already forming, however, I hustled on down the stairs.

After two banks and a wait for my number to be called at the Post Office, I returned to our fourth-floor place that the Greeks and other Europeans, in their wisdom, insist on describing as being on the third floor. By the time I reached the second (or first) floor, I could hear and feel the melodious, mellifluous, yet lively music. Standing on the visitor’s side of my front door, I was greeted by an almost visceral tuneful salutation. Opening the door, the full weight of that otherwise soothing sweetness smacked me in the ears and sinus cavities, welcoming me home.

While I’m trying to be sympathetic to my neighbors (I really am!), I am also enjoying the high-voltage music. Sometimes, it doesn’t take much! Right?