Acclimatization

It is funny the things one gets used to through repetition. Things that you never thought you could live with you find yourself not even noticing. For example, I used to live in Memphis, Tennessee in a cheap little apartment off the MSU campus. I wasn't a student; just poor… it was the best I could afford.

One of the things that made it so cheap was that not twenty-five yards from the spot where my head hit the pillow every night was a major rail line. The Southern Railway's main switching yard was just a half-a-mile up the tracks to the west and trains ran past my apartment day and night on an average of four per hour.

If you have never lived on a rail line you really can't appreciate the noise that they make as they pass. Tons of locomotive, thousands of horsepower of diesel-electric generators, and their cargo going past a stone's throw away from you gets your attention, at first…

Visitors to my home used to comment on the noise. "Doesn't the noise of those trains drive you crazy?" visitors who had come over for dinner or to play cards would say as the dishes in the cabinets danced.

"What train?" I would ask completely seriously.

The point is that you get used to things. Quite seriously, if you are exposed to anything you get used to it. This is a good thing if you live next to a major freight rail line. Not such a good thing if you start missing the cool thing that are going on around you because you've gotten used to them.

I got to thinking about this the other night as I was taking a nighttime ride home from the pub. It was about eight and the sun was still an-hour-or-two from setting. It was a cool evening and as I was making my way across the village the clock in the Home of Compassion clock tower struck the hour. It suddenly occurred to me that I hadn't heard that in a while.

Sure, I had heard it… by which I mean the vibrations in the air reached my ears, but I hadn't heard it! I had become accustomed to hearing it. When I first got here, it was one of the things that I thought was really cool! The village clock tower, chiming the hour so that everyone knew the time. I'd be lying in bed at four fifty-something and wondering if it were time to get out of bed when I would hear five bells toll from across the village.

I've decided not to take things for granted. It is going to be hard not to get used to things and take them for granted, but there it is… A mid-year resolution if you will: Don't take life for granted.

Wherever you are today, I hope you'll take a minute to appreciate the great things that surround you that you've started to take for granted.

Don Bergquist - 10 July 2007 - Thames Ditton, Surrey, UK