Memories for her feel like layered stories that with time and knowledge add new twists and understandings. Removing layers is not easy but sounds can be a very powerful time traveling device. Sounds cross the border and permeate the consciousness much faster than other types of perception. Although she is far away from home, sounds unconsciously create moments when she feels as if she can travel through distance and time. Sounds create very familiar contexts when as if for a miniscule of time she transferred home back into childhood. She even started to feel dizzy because of such fast travel. Sounds may come in pairs, threesomes, orchestral bands. There are those that can be heard only by some species. 

What about water lilies – what do they hear? She sound-travelled to the moment when she was about five or six years old, sitting on the bank of the artificially created canal that had in some places small ponds.

It was a holiday, one of those rare occasions when she could enjoy a lazy day with other neighbours and family, not collecting Colorado potato beetles or weeding crops. A small pond was very crowded: sunny weather brought people closer to the water and each other. She walked from the blanket to the bank, sensing cool leaves of grass and other plants with her feet. Among splashes of water coming from other children swimming in the pond, ducks and ducklings finding their way to a quieter spot, and cows thoughtfully and lazily looking around and occasionally drinking water from the pond further away, she heard buzzing sounds coming from a water lily. These were all sorts of bugs and flies that were attracted by a bright yellow colour of the flower. An orchestra of tiny creatures. She was trying to get as close as possible and look into this miniature world. She was imagining the communication that they must have with each other, younger ones playing and older ones routinely doing their job. For bugs there are no holidays. She wondered if waterlilies heard them. How do they communicate? Her child’s imagination was coming up with all sorts of stories of bugs’ world. All of a sudden, a duck was making its way through the thick leaves of the waterlilies and scared all the bugs away. She thought that ducks are too big to join this fun orchestra. And probably a bit too loud for such delicate sounds. Walking back home she kept thinking how the water lilies play and communicate with bugs.