I lay there, with the coastal breeze against my warm skin. I feel a slight chill as it hits the beads of sweat gathered under my knees and at my forehead. The air is sweet. Wet and sweet. I feel the dampness of my humidity-soaked blouse, my greasy hair swept across the nape of my neck, the way my sandals push too hard into my arch, the tightness of my mid-rise jeans.

Looking into the treetops, through the winding branches. The green leaves, moist and sticky. Through the pink and white feathery flowers. Into the light blue, cloudless sky.

I listen to the wind move through the leaves. Shivering, undulating, spraying the air with moisture. The sound of the sun shining and the clouds expanding. Of the tree branches creaking and their leaves humming. Of the ground contracting and the grass whispering.

The sound of silence.

In the city you don’t get to have these moments. The time to lay beneath a persian silk tree and stare and think — and not think — and daydream and remember picking the bipinnate leaves from the very same tree that grows outside your childhood home some three thousand miles away. The feeling of running your thumb and forefinger along the stem and plucking each individual leaf part from its place.

I would love to set aside ten minutes every day to breathe. To think about nothing and to talk to no one. To be outside, to stare into the sky and not do anything. Just breath. Why does that seem so unattainable?