“no air conditioning?how can you sleep?”a friend asks, horrified.i`ve just revealed that my family has decided to shut the air conditioner off and trim our electric bill.
“nobody opens a window,day or night,”warns another friend, whose windows have been painted shut for a decade.“this is the `90s.it`s not safe.”
on this first night of our cost-cutting adventure,it`s on1y 85 degrees.we`re not going to suffer, but the three kids gumble anyway. they`ve grown up in 72-degree comfort,insulated from the world outside.
“how do you open these windows?” my husband asks.jiggling the metal tabs, he finally releases one. a potpourri of bug decorates the sill. as we spring the windows one by one, the night noises howl outside and in.“it`s too hot to sleep,”my 13-year-old daughter moans.
“i`m about to die from this heat,”her brother hollers down the hal1.“just try it tonigt,”i tell them.
in truth i`m too tired to argue for long.i`m exhausted after attending grandma`s estate auction.i toted home her oval tin bathtub and the chair i once stood on like a big shot behind the counter of her store,sacking tootsie rolls and rolling pennies.
my face is sweaty, but i lie quietly listening to the cricket choirs outside theat remind me of childhood,the neighbor`s dog howls.probably a trespassing squirre1.it`s been years since i`ve taken the time to really listen to the night.
i think about grandma,who lived to 92 and still supervised mom`s gardening until just a few weeks before she died.
and then,i`m back there at the house in the summer heat of my childhood.