Oh boisterous night

I often say whoever coined the phrase "slept like a baby" never actually HAD a baby. I also say that whoever said they escape to the "solitude and quiet" of the rural South has never been there. Tonight, from my father's backyard there is a symphonic commotion of noises and life. I keep getting startled by the air conditioner going from the quiet drip drip dripping of condensated liquid to sudden roaring based on some uneven pattern and thermostat setting. The old motor crackles and hums until it has adequately cooled the house inside so it can shut up again without warning. When the old air conditioner is quiet I hear nature's joie de vivre more clearly. There are no people out, but I am not alone. How the night just sings with the croaking of bullfrogs, the bleating of katydids and all the unknown species of insect voices murmuring and quarreling in the ditches to a syncopated rhythm. The puddles of water in the distance look eerily alive with the blinking and winking of minnows and mosquitoes in the moonlight. Who knows what other invisible creatures are out moving and making sounds only my dad's dogs can hear. Yet I can feel the bugs and mammals I can't make out watching me in the dark. I slap and slap and kill the invisible ones that make it to my sticky skin for a drink. My legs and arms become itchy and red and sweat trickles down my back as my own internal air conditioning kicks on. What a salty and tasty treat I am to those little lives. How every square inch of space around me pulsates with the buzzing sounds of life and death. The air wafts with the rich pungent smells of decomposition and growth. The circle of life can be so loud, smelly, boisterous and biting if you sit and listen to the "solitude and quiet" of the Southern backwoods.

I know back in Berkeley, if I were lying on the slide near my urban home when the sky was pink and stars are just lingering--there would not the slightest noise besides the crescendoing and fading hum of the BART train every thirty minutes. On that asphalt play yard there might be one bum, maybe a stray dog, but I'd be mostly alone and wondering, wondering what made me alive .