Monday, December 24, 2012

Ringing of the Bells

Every so often I get a kind of Heimweh --homesickness -- for Germany, where I lived as a child, and for Ithaca, where I grew up. When one lives in either place, one hears bells every day, great bells and small bells. At Cornell they ring morning bells and later in the day, when I used to walk home from school, I'd often listen to Far Above Cayuga's Waters or the Cornell Changes as they seeped through the hemlocks and the mist. In Germany, the bells rang the hours and the services, and their pulse was part of my pulse. I miss that very much, and listen hard for church bells that sometimes are rung not too far from here, but the wind rarely blows from the south.



So here, in honor of Christmas Eve, let's listen to bells, from churches all around the center of Trier. A kind person filmed the six o'clock bells, and how magical and peaceful they are.

4 comments:

Kleidung um 1800 said...

Dear Natalie,

what a wonderful memory to share!
Frohe Weihnachten! Hope you and your loved ones have a very Merry Christmas.

Sabine

MrsC (Maryanne) said...

Merry Christmas Natalie ( a great Christmas name that!) Blessing to you and your family. xoxo

The Bohemian Belle said...

Lovely! I didn't know you lived in Germany as a child!

ZipZip said...

Hoping that your Christmas was blessed. Yes, my Dad was with IBM and we lived near Stuttgart, and then again in the 80s. My sister married a German man, remained and lives in Vienna, and of course her children live there too.

Very best,

Natalie