There is some magical freedom here. Some prospect of some wild thing lurking deliciously on the periphery. Amid the constant rainfall, the dancing candlelight, and the wind; slow droning air then. With no warning, a frenzy. Something burns in the peace of this moment. The curtain billows in response, and cool damp air forces itself under them to cover me. I can feel a subtle spritz where thin and delicate spray is carried in with it.

These past months have brought many a night like this and it amazes me every time how I love this lonely time of night. Although lonely, it is a comfort and is certainly not quiet. It seems like the weather and I are the only forces alive in the street. We are witness to each other; exposed and raw, and showing our hands. It is like we share a time and space, tapped into the moment. Despite the crisp coolness of my cotton sheets and the fact that the window has been open all day in mid-January, I am not cold. I am never cold on these nights but instead I am invigorated by a liveliness to the wild and private peace of the night.

And silence…

The rain stops for the first time in hours. The wind drops, and the curtains settle straight, back into line. I pray the calm is temporary. I pray that the flame will dance again, and that the hairs on my arms will rise to meet the night air once again. The steady drips falling from the gutter brings an unwelcome tedium. Its regularity in the quiet is disturbing; its predictability, stifling. The room feels heavy, and I feel suffocated in the small space of waiting for the next, and the next… a beat that signals that the storm is over, that everything outside will settle down in recovery, that that the wild but welcome moment is over. Eventually the beat will slow, the memory of the freedom of the previous chaos will fade away, and the loneliness creeps in.

But wait… it begins, again. I am pleased…

It returns to drown out the monotony of that boring drip. The wind builds, lashing rain falls in sheets, then twists; blown into disorder before recovering a steady direction, if only for a short time on the already soaked street. That whipping wind: its energy invading the room with such passion and disregard, billowing under the curtain to find my skin. The flame of the candle tries over and over to abide to its natural way; proud and straight, steady and upward but it cannot, the natural way of another thing will not allow it.

The liveliness of this time, on these stormy nights, when one should feel so utterly alone, when the rest of the street sleeps, and one should feel afraid of forces greater than oneself, of their unpredictability that forces a humbling perspective, a strange comfort. Closing the window is never an option on these nights. A freedom in the recognition of powerlessness comes with the reminding presence; a relieving sensation that there is a wildness to life forcing our fluctuations, refusing to allow us to exist being straight and steady. These times reveal the vigorousness behind the mundanity. The window must be open.