We are at the minimum temperature for the day, 23 celsius or 74 Fahrenheit. The sun only hints at rising and song birds, at least a few of them in this overbuilt space, sing into dawn.
Just a bit of cool blows in a slight breeze. I feel it as I sit shirtless on my terrace six floors above the street and about a mile from the Sea.
Being awake now in this quickly disappearing darkness is a luxury. So few people are. We are still three hours or so from the city’s awakening when cafés lift their shutters as people trickle from residences on their way to work. Well, it is Sunday, so a correction, maybe four or five hours till that trickle of people leaving home for one reason or another becomes noticeable.
At midnight, last night and tonight, the sky over the sea by the city did and will erupt in color. Claps of explosions bounce in the air and smack buildings. The city is nearing the end of its June firework competition in which five firms are competing to see who can claim the official seal of performing the best show of colored bursts at the time when one day changes to the next.
For some time now, journalists and promotors have hailed the Mediterranean diet. In all honesty, it seems to weaken in the onslaught of industrial food and marketing. Still, there is something else Mediterranean worth looking into and celebrating, sleep divided into two.
Afternoons are so hot. Yes, I know. I look at the numbers and they are not any hotter than they are in much of the United States, So, yes. People live the rise and fall of temperatures differently here. Spanish officialdom encourages people to pull down their persianas, their slatted shutters on a roll, to block out light and hence heat, to keep the inside temperatures down. They also encourage windows and doors be opened into the night to draw cooler air inside.
After lunch, while the sun blazes, it is dark inside as a result and people sleep for a two or three hours until the heat breaks its rise and begins descending seriously.
This is the siesta and it is far more than a nap. That word suggests a brief snooze while here people easily get an hour or two of sleep and that makes up for less sleep at night.
At midnight the city sponsors noise and explosions. They expect whole families to be up and enjoying the time. And, in fact, they are and do.
Yesterday afternoon, when I came back from the nearby grocery store, a neighbor from the floor below mine, a learned woman in her early seventies, stood at the building’s door with a pile of bags. She was waiting for her husband and grandchildren to return from going for the car. (my building does not have its own parking and so people must rent or buy spaces elsewhere).
We smiled and said hello. I asked if they were off somewhere thinking maybe they were taking a weekend trip. “We are going to the beach—to one a bit away from the city’s center—to see the fireworks with our grandchildren.”
It probably was two or later before they returned and tumbled into slumber. No worries, today is Sunday and they can sleep in. Wake a bit before noon, have a leisurely coffee and toast to begin their day at the same time when in the US people are preparing or eating lunch.
In any case, here, mid afternoon, say three thirty of four, after their lunch, they will stretch out again on their beds, in the dark inside and sleep again.
I am not a scientist wiring people up to study this biphasic sleep, to know how deep it is or to figure out its effect on the body. Instead, though a trained observer, I live here and now I too sleep in shifts, one at night and one in the afternoon. I have taken on this Mediterranean rhythm of life. Mine is probably more triphasic—I love the dawn; so I sleep, wake up for a couple of hours, sleep again, wake up until after lunch I sleep again and then am up till near midnight. It all works out to about eight hours.
The gulls have been calling for a while now, while I type away. The doves have started cooing and just now pigeons began their more rattling calls. Dawn is fully here. The sun is now beginning to climb above the horizon. Heat will soon follow.