Waiting for the Breeze
Lying in bed by an open window and listen.“No air conditioning?How can you sleep?”a friend asks, horrified.I've just revealed that my family has decided to shut the air conditioner off and trim our electric bill.
“Nobody opens a window,day or night,”warns another friend, whose windows have been painted shut for a decade.“This is the 1990s.It's not safe.”
On this first night of our cost-cutting adventure,it's only 85 degrees.we're not going to suffer, but the three kids grumble anyway. They've grown up in 72-degree comfort,insulated from the world outside.
“How do you open these windows?” my husband asks.Jiggling the metal tabs, he finally releases one. A potpourri of bug decorates the sill. As we spring the windows one by one, the night noises howl outside and in.“It's too hot to sleep,”my 13-year-old daughter moans.
“I'm about to die from this heat,”her brother hollers down the hall.“Just try it tonigt.”I tell them.
In truth I'm too tired to argue for long. My face is sweaty, but I lie quietly listening to the cricket choirs outside that remind me of childhood.The neighbor's dog howls.Probably a trespassing squirrel.It's been years since I've taken the time to really listen to the night.
I think about Grandma,who lived to 92 and still supervised Mom's gardening until just a few weeks before she died.
And then,I'm back there at her house in the summer heat of my childhood.
I move my pillow to the foot of Grandma's bed and angle my face toward the open window.I flip the pillow, hunting for the cooler side.
Grandma sees me thrashing.“If you'll just watch for the breeze,”she says,“you'll cool off and fall asleep.”
She cranks up the Venetian blinds.I stare at the filmy white curtain, willing it to flutter.
Lying still, waiting, I suddenly notice the life outside the window. The bug chorus ,neighbors, porch-sitting late, speak in hazy words with sanded edges that soothe me.
“MOM,DID Y0U HEAR THAT?”my seven-year-o1d blurts.“I think it was an owl family.”
“Probably” I tell him.“Just keep listening…”
Without the droning air condition,the house is oddly peaceful,and the unfiltered night noises seem close enough to touch.
I hope I'm awake tonight when the first breeze sneaks in.
