Little light is shining
through the window, Lets me know everything's alright
Summer breeze, makes
me feel fine….” --Seals and Croft
Windows open or windows shut tight?
I face this conundrum in late spring and early summer: when
to shut the sashes and secure the locks and then wrestle my bulky, noisy,
creaky, ancient window air conditioner into place. When to say “UNCLE!” to the
hot days of summer and surrender. When to hermetically seal up the house and
for the most part not crack open the windows again until after Labor Day.
It’s not that I don’t enjoy the artificial cool: the sweet
sensation of walking into a chilled room after wading through waves of sticky humidity.
The relief of a chilled night’s sleep after sweating and schlepping all
day. The hum of the machine putting me
to sleep. I certainly get that some
folks—the old, the ill, poor souls whose job it is to work under a hot sun—they
deserve to chill out. In many places air conditioning isn’t a luxury. It’s a
given, non-negotiable. There’s New England heat and then there’s Texas hot!
But me? I need my open windows.
I need to hear the train whistle blow late at night, stirring
restlessness and comfort in me. To wake up to bird song in the morning, cardinals
and finches and mourning doves heralding a new day. I need to hear the pitter patter then the torrential
tumult of a thunderstorm. To hear the laughter of kids playing catch, the whap
of the ball in a baseball mitt. I need
to hear the whir of a lawn mower and then smell the perfume of freshly cut
grass. To be serenaded by the warble of
the ice cream truck as it lumbers down the road on a sultry August
afternoon. When the window is down and
the AC is cranked up I’m deaf to this symphony.
Open windows do mean there will be noises we can do without:
the numbing buzz of leaf blowers, the whine of sirens in the distance, the whir
of traffic and horns blowing on the street, the cheers of late night revelers
partying it up one block over. When we
choose to keep the windows open we invite the whole world in, God’s Creation
writ large, all of it: the good, the bad, the soothing and the cacophonous.
But that’s a risk I’m willing to take. I can’t imagine summer without seasonal
sounds. It would be much too muted, quiet,
muffled and certainly boring. Only three
months ago our windows were shut tight. Remember? The singular sound then was
the metallic scrape of snowplows. The
soundtrack of summer is not supposed to be dominated by the industrial hum of
an air conditioner. Instead it’s a top 40 song blasting from a passing car, the
splash of water from a backyard pool, the sizzle of meat on the grill and
peepers peeping at dusk.
I confess that on some wicked hot day in the weeks ahead,
I’ll finally break down and chill out, turn my AC on. I’ll seal up all the air
cracks and then pull within my little igloo of icy air. I’ll awaken each morning well rested but
chilled, as if I’ve slept in a refrigerator crisper drawer all night long.
Until then I’m keeping the windows open for a summer breeze.
After all, it’s almost summer! You just have to listen.
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