Last night, I had a hard time turning off my light and going to sleep. For whatever reason, I felt restless and too tired to sleep well, almost the way I used to feel the night before an airplane trip, or the first day of school. I finally convinced myself to put my book down and turn out the light a little after 12:30 am. I started on my back, then turned on to my right side, stretching my legs to fully appreciate the luxury of having a queen-sized bed all my own. Searching for a cool spot of pillow I turned again, this time onto my stomach, and stuck a leg out of the blanket, to better monitor the temperature.

I fell asleep that way, and didn’t move until 5:30, when the sound of rain woke me up. I had left the window open in an attempt to lure some of the cooler night time air into my room and along with the breeze came the normal nighttime city noises of sirens, screeching trains rolling towards 30th Street Station, drunk pedestrians and the hum of building-sized cooling units. These sounds don’t wake me up anymore, but the shift from that accustomed white noise to the rain drops pulled me from sleep immediately.

Groggily awake, I went to the bathroom, fluffed my pillows and settled back into bed. I listened to the pouring rain for awhile, thinking about the skylight in my high school bedroom. It would often bring the sound of storms into my bedroom, albeit a more laid back fall of water than the one that hit last night.

I fell back to sleep to the sounds and smells of the rain, all the antsy-ness of earlier carried away by the water.