Cooling Lap

It’s evening and it’s cooled off outside. It’s cooler and drier than we have any right to in August: it’s perfect.

I can hear the crickets outside, the fan in the next room and the plaintive, white noise from the few cars passing by each minute. They are mostly distant and listening to them (the cars, not the crickets) you could almost be forgiven for mistaking them for the sound of breaking surf on a strange beach. It isn’t quite the same as watching and listening to a fire after dark, but even the sounds of a quiet urban evening can have their charms. The similarity is that it’s mostly quiet and no one feels like they need to say anything at the moment.

I used to take walks on nights like this when I was in graduate school. Actually, I used to take walks almost every night when I was in graduate school. It was a “cooling lap” to relax and take my mind off of my classes. School required an awful lot of sitting and thinking, so the walking that I did to and from my apartment—whether for class or for relaxation—felt like it was good for clearing my head. And it helped me to become tired, to want sleep.

I may have to take up the practice again of doing a cooling lap before bed: to get a little tired, to listen to the city and the crickets, and to settle into a gait and a mood where I don’t feel like I need to say anything to myself for a while.