I would have loved to have seen the moon rise last evening, but I chose (wisely) to be in bed instead. It was 10 pm. Our child had been asleep since 8.45 pm. I’d already managed to ‘have’ the late evening, in a sense. I’d been craving gelato all day but hadn’t found the right moment to indulge. After our dal paratha dinner, I felt even more seduced by the idea of Stracciatella, those crunchy bits of chocolate intervening through a creamy texture, dancing on one’s tongue. I decided to walk to the gelataria. It happened to be the first Long Wednesday in Tramin, it’s an annual affair wherein every Wednesday in July, the streets are closed to vehicular traffic and bars and make-shift eateries pop up until late, musicians inhabit street corners, or someone sets up a stand to make and sell Strauben, South Tyrol’s version of jalebi. The day’s warmth had given way to a light wind that rustled through your clothes, soothing your skin. When I arrived at Obermair, the local ice cream shop, I saw the inevitable queue. It wasn’t snaky, just four or five people ahead of me. For a moment I wished I had bought a Magnum instead from the supermarket, but once I decided to let go of the anxiety, I was rewarded with a feeling of ease. What was the worst that could happen? Our child could wake up, but my partner was home, holding the fort, and I would simply have to feed him again to help him return to sleep. Besides, joining the queue was part of the experience of being outdoors in this communal way. I slowly slipped into a more relaxed mood and ordered two scoops, so that the Tiramisu flavour sat atop the Stracciatella. I began the short walk back and stopped to listen to a quartet play a classical rendition of Abba’s Thank You For the Music before returning to our apartment. I got the fix I had needed. 

My partner asked if I wanted to watch an episode of Borgen. I told him I wanted to sleep. Within five minutes we were both in bed. When I woke up two hours later, I saw the moon stationed resplendently in the sky. It felt mystical. I basked in its glow for a short while before returning to bed. This morning when I woke up around 5.30 am, I found the sky already laden with clouds, as if preparing for a storm, on our side of the valley there was a redness that was beginning to seep through the gaps between the tufts of clouds, dawn about to break. It felt marvellous. I chose not to return to sleep.