Windless in silence for a change.

We've had a lot of wind recently ... on workdays ... so a little calm on the weekend was welcome, especially since I had a cold and was not doing anything but catching up on those things you put off when it's windy sailing weather. I crossed the Sound today, not many water craft out, the sight of all that water stretching east, rippled by a light breeze, those little islands below the Throgg's Neck Bridge, traffic moving well, it was all good for the soul to see, the expanse of it all. 
...

we all need a little ...

One of the quietest nights I've walked the dog on ... and listened to, since September 2001. 
59F here and the sudden drop in temp it feels like the 40s.

Living not 20 miles from three of the world's largest airports, there's usually always some kind of background roar or aircraft, automobiles, motorbikes, fire engines and whatnot around here.
We're about the second or third town past where the metropolitan buzz ends these days. [it has spread nearer and nearer, such that we often begin to think our town is becoming like a part of the NYC Borough of Queens, sometimes.]

For a moment I almost felt transported to
... here.

But tonight the silence was so deafening I stopped walking with the dog, for us both to listen. Before all there had been was the sound of dogs barking and people sneezing. A cat scurrying away into the bushes. and then nothing. I checked the stars on this deep blue cloudless night — like I did before I hurt my neck — and they were all in place, no constellation tainted by blinking lights of passing planes. And the silence in between them as quiet as our breathing could be. That's the great thing about some hunting-type dogs, they can instinctively summon stillness, too.

You stop dead; they stop and stand at full alert.

The big quiet lasted about maybe 5 or 10 minutes, I guess. So rare around here I almost wondered if something wasn't wrong. Even when the wind keep the flight paths west, there's usually plenty of planes twinkling their tail lights, or wing lights like so many distant fireflies, nose lights coming in like beacons.

The last time it went so quiet was shortly after 9/11 when the only aircraft to punctuate the silence were National Guard jets flying fast at high altitude through a then-eerie silence.

Quiet, dark nights are probably the norm for most of the country folk among us. I can remember what it was like from boyhood, to lay down in a field on my back, in the darkness returning from town to the last street by the edge of the farms where I lived. No light. just stars.

Now, however, I've been so urbanized, and this long-ago pastoral area has become more hustle-bustly, that quiet is almost disarming. I'm not sure we'd be able to deal with it if we moved to the country. (though we can quickly get used to it on vacay in a place like Cape Cod, given the chance.)

... or even here ...

When I used to check the constellations, I'd pick the darkest streets for the best viewing some of them; try to memorize the star groupings and check them later against star maps.

Pain in the ass when the new guy, who came to live opposite the little dark street with the best star-viewing area, installed a motion-sensor light on his side door, effectively blasting the night with flooding blinding halogen beams, if anyone, or any car passed within 100 yards ... and this a relatively busy street, so the damn thing was always on. Glad to say it's gone now.

I count blessings when the end street light bulb gives out once in a while, and the night reclaims its darkness. For we still have some small parcels of woods to suck out the light like a vacuum ... and near them, you can hear all the stars and see all the silence.

Yes, I know, I need to take some fresh,
night-time happy black dog photos

I wonder what my young dog makes of all this. Yeah, I know. "There's that branch of fine crunchy twigs I was eating that my person took from me and threw away this morning, now I got it back! and I'm chew it to pieces and eat it all up."