Moonlight

Of course cities are quieter than the countryside.

Looking at the hard edge of a building in Rome in black and white in summer.

Rome 2016

Last night I woke up a little after midnight and found myself strolling toward the window. A faint shimmer of moonlight lit my path across the wood floor, drawing me farther away from the bed. There’s a maple tree just a short distance from my window, and I could see, even in the darkness, the green tint of its leaves. Standing closer, I began to hear a light wind, its thrust against the window the most gentle of nudges.

Only on rare occasions have I found agreement with my claim that cities are quieter than the countryside. Only on rare occasions, however, have I heard an actual rebuttal. My claim is about the relative quiet of cities at night: the variation between midday and midnight is greater, and that contrast is what makes the hush of nighttime in a city feel so calming. And this works regardless of the city, whether you’re in New York or São Paulo or Rome, the jackhammers and horns and traffic of midday is the contrast that makes the overnight hours so quiet.

Without knowing the contrast, in fact, makes quiet a meaningless term. Quiet can be used only within a context. A quiet library presents you with an image; a quiet barroom presents you with another image, one that’s certainly a bit louder.

As I write these paragraphs, there’s a light, but much needed, rain which is tapping on a nearby windowsill. Just before the rain arrived this morning, the air seemed to shift, in what felt like a descent. Nothing seemed unusual about the new temperature. Nor about the appearance of darkening clouds. But the abrupt shift, the sudden contrast, pointed to a change worth noticing.

Writers have always made good use of rain, or these shifts in the weather. A little drizzle gives the characters a reason to hustle and lets the writer play a bit with description. Here’s a slick window. There’s a cobblestone street, glossed by a downpour. In the distance the clouds look black, an ominous sign. And difficult weather doesn’t even limit what’s possible. The writer can conjure a storm to accentuate a gloomy mood, or use a shower for a nice contrast—look at that character, still jolly while caught in a tempest.

How often have I lain beneath rain on a strange roof, thinking of home.

Remove the rain from that Faulkner quote—taken from As I Lay Dying—and you’ve changed more than the tone. To be below a strange roof is one sensation. To hear the percussion of raindrops on that strange roof is another.

Watching the clock to measure your days is the trap. Digital blinks, or even flips of a calendar, only mask what’s changed. The transition is too abstract for you to notice. Whether the days are rainy or sunny, they quickly merge into a mass, as one day simply becomes the next. The real key is to notice the contrasts, the subtle transitions, the shifts you can feel—the seasons, a storm, the sun’s path. Haven’t you ever lost five hours? Or a few days? Stuck in a loop, hardly noticing the change? Our measurement of time—no different than our sense of taste, or our feeling of temperature—comes through contrast. You notice it with any worthwhile dish: if the meal lacks an apt contrast, your tastebuds don’t quite sing. And, it’s worth remembering, if you forget to discern the subtle changes during your days, they end up simply drifting away.