Ding Dong

Since I've been in Seine, I don't hear bells. That's a bad thing. In almost every place I've lived---from Maine to Malta, from Oregon to Oslo---I've lived in a neighborhood not far from a church whose bells I could hear ring at set times during the day. For me it's such a melancholic and spiritual sound, especially the early-evening bell at 6:00 p.m. When I was a child, that's the time I would hear our church bell, and it would be the cue that my father would be home from work within a few minutes, and it would be time for supper.

We would have kinder, gentler, more-spiritual neighborhoods and neighbors everywhere, I think, if all of us could hear the daily pattern of church bells---unless, of course, if the ringing would wake us too early on weekend mornings.

-Old Gargoyle