Sound Walk (Buschwick)

My Sound-walk was from the L train, at the Morgan stop in Bushwick, to the M train stop on DeKalb Street. As I step off the train the first sound is the familiar ding-ding that precedes the door closure and the whining of the train pulling off. The whirr of the trains moving down the track continues as I walk out of the station, and it's slowly replaced by wind sounds and car sounds - a woman speaks into her phone quietly as she walks down the stairs, opposite me. I’m hyper-aware that I can hear other people, and it seems as though she can tell I can hear her. By the time I am fully out of the station, it's mostly only car sounds until I get to Knickerbocker Street, where I can now hear “I Want You Back” by the Jackson 5 playing out of the speakers at the vintage shop just before Flushing street, it is distorted by the cheap outdoor speakers, to sound muffled and almost wet. I follow knickerbocker into what is a more urban, less industrial area. The sounds change quickly - there are loud children and the sound of parents talking. I walk past a card game going on, the card players are quiet but jovial - there are a few laughs and short riff-sentences in what I think was either Spanish or Portuguese. I try not to linger and keep walking - there is a pizza shop which is playing loud Spanish music and lots of conversation and cooking sounds come out of its open front doors. I turn on to Dekalb street and it is almost immediately quieter, the social sounds are almost all completely replaced with car sounds, I’m now facing into the wind, and perhaps it's my focus waning, but I don’t really notice any other sound than the wind until I hear the distant sound of the subway, as I walk toward the stairs to the raised platform I see some 12-13-year-old kids smoking and listening to something poppy on one of their phones, I keep walking and swipe my card at the turnstile. After the second set of stairs, and 5 minutes more of wind, I hear the deep whirr of the train approaching and finally that familiar ding-ding.