I take a bite of the sidewalk and fall back between the cracks. Is it still vipassana then? If my mind is not allowed to wander any farther than the sirens and bus stop conversations outside the window we’ve left open. It’s too hot. So we have to choose each night, between sweating through our sheets, and opening the window to noise that even ear plugs with a 33 NRR can’t block out. We have ice packs in the freezer. I can wrap one of these in an old t-shirt and get my temperature low enough to at least fall sleep. By midnight, sometimes before, the ice pack is melted. So the window gets opened eventually. And then the same choice: to fight the noise, pull the pillow around my ears, and try not to hear; or meditate on the chaos. I cannot do this successfully. Some primal part of me cannot forget that loud noises mean danger. And my writer’s mind has a hard time hearing conversations without listening to the words being said. I try not to judge. I try to just notice. But I still miss the pitch black silent nights in Montana.