In the nighttime.

Photo by Dara

Chicago has been lucky this summer. We're closing in on the tail-end of August so I feel secure I'm not going to jinx us too thoroughly with this observation. While much of the U.S. has dealt with miserable heatwaves and storms, we've had lovely weather most of the time. It's my first time in a decade living somewhere without central air, and I've only had to turn on my window AC unit a handful of evenings this year.

Mostly I just sleep with all the windows of my apartment wide open, inviting in the soft late night breeze and oddly, the sounds of nature.

I live in the city proper, blocks away from both an expressway and an L station, yet if I close my eyes in the middle of the night all I hear is the steady buzz of nature punctuated by the occasional cricket chirps. The thrum of the cicadas is heaviest around dusk and melts away to a pleasant hum by total nightfall. But once I block out any visual stimuli I swear I could be lying in a tent in the middle of a forest in some remote location.

It's peaceful. It's soothing. At times if I really give into the aural quilt it's almost like floating in a sensory depravation tank with a new age soundtrack constructed from the fabric of the outdoors. My breathing slows. My heart rate drops. It's meditative. It balances out the uncertainty of the daylight hours and helps me recharge. So much so that I'm back to waking up at 5 a.m. every morning feeling fully refreshed and eager to make some coffee and bounce out of the door toward my gym as quickly as possible.

And I'm grateful.