Watching her Sleep

As you watch your lover sleeping, enjoying her peace equally with yours—you become familiar with her breath. You see her life force expand and retract: inhale and exhale. So the night is intimate. It rejuvenates life. It creates life. It connects us.

And so too insomnia familiarizes me with Ann Arbor. We have become connected because I see her at her most vulnerable moments—those without the heavy distractions of city congestion, when the lights are dim and the moon is bright.

I walk the streets and find the familiar places devoid of calamity. They are empty and dark and stagnant and empty. And in those spaces, peering in through mirrored windows, I see that they are tanks without fuel. They need us. They want us.

Ann Arbor breathes us into her every day and exhales us out of her every night. So if you want to see her—become acquainted with her nature—see her at night. Watch her sleep.