Sound Signature of Summer

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When I assemble story lists, which are included in my
larger notebooks, there is an entire category that is
made of sounds: creaks, hisses, roars, whispers. Many
sounds are tied to places, to stretches of terrain. Nature
is filled with clues, warnings and songs.
Every town, city and village I've ever spent time in has
their own idiosyncratic sound signatures. Keeping tabs
of these aural elements helps when constructing the
bones of a tale.
Certain sounds are very specifically tied to mood, and
provide a way of toning down or dialing up tension.

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When I was young, after our family had moved back into
town - which included access to televisions- my grandmother
would come up and spend an entire year with us at a time. This
was a profound and magical part of my education.
We were room mates and friends.
Grandma was a voracious reader and a vivid storyteller. We read
books to eachother: Lousia May Alcott, Jane Austen, Edgar Allen
Poe, Ray Bradbury, Outer Limits comics and on and on.
I still remember the stunning retelling my grandmother performed
for me of  Anthony Hope's The Prisoner of Zenda.
There was a ritual that informed my sense of the importance of
sound effects as well as spoken dialogue. Whenever I came up
with an excuse or was I was able to devise an 'illness' in order to
stay home from school, Grandmother would turn on the television
with its staticky black and white series and unnerving advertisements.
Grandmother had me turn the volume off. Occasionally, I would
inexpertly play minor chords on my mother's electric organ while
the two us created the dialogue. We shook sheets of foil and sometimes
I'd don my tap-shoes and click across a stretch of linoleum.
Today I apply the lessons I learned from my beloved mentor both
in breaking through what I call Writer's Wall and when I'm puzzling
over which auditory cues I want to include in a particular scene.