July 22, 2011
In search of a cool breeze
Yesterday, when the temperature “felt like” 50 degrees Celsius, I kept thinking about Booky, and her depression-era family, and this one vivid scene I remember in which they had to close the drapes, and everybody slept in the front room where the fans were. We are depression-era in that we don’t have air-conditioning, though this usually isn’t a problem. Our second and third floor apartment is ensconced high up in the branches of several enormous trees that shade us, and a breeze flows through our three big front windows out the wide-opened kitchen doors. No one wants the 50 degree Celsius breeze however, so yesterday I countered all my ideas of common sense and shut all the windows, closed the blinds first thing in the morning, had the fans going in every room. It worked– we came home after lunch yesterday, and our house was much cooler than the outside (though this wasn’t really saying much). It was a bit like living in a dark and windy cave, but not sweltering at least. By bedtime, however, the heat was uncomfortable.
But when Harriet woke up for something at 4:30 this morning, I came down to check on her and then noticed the blinds at the front blowing in a breeze, and I could feel it, and it was lovely. I went into the kitchen and opened up the doors (we don’t have a window in our kitchen. It’s the doors or nothing) and suddenly air was flowing through the house again, and I was in a quandary. I couldn’t possibly close the doors, but I also couldn’t go back to bed and leave them open, though I longed to, but I read someplace once that we’re not meant to leave our doors wide open in the middle of the night. I decided that one would be unlikely to rob us, however, if one arrived at the doors to find me asleep on the kitchen floor, so that’s what I did, with just a pillow for comfort (and the company of several moths).
It was kind of glorious, and from where I lay, I could see the moon. The breeze was nice. I didn’t sleep so soundly, however, as the kitchen floor is as uncomfortable as it is filthy, so once the birds had brought the sun up with their incessant singing, I decided the time from robbery had probably passed, and returned to the comforts of my mattress.
