As outdoor temperatures become more sympathetic to our physical and spiritual natures, we crank open our bedroom windows at night.  Sleeping with the windows open gives me a new perspective on the world.  It carries me beyond the edge of nighttime hours into a realm that is at once haunting, as it summons another dimension, and soothing, as it dissipates cares and anxieties of daytime hours.
The wind goes whoosh and I wonder what makes the whooshing sound.  It can't be the leaves brushing against each other because the leaves are still buds.  I decide the whoosh is probably the sound of air moving through the large gathering of maple trunks in our neighborhood and twirling through their limbs and branches that stretch every which way.
Spells of silence penetrate the night as the whoosh moves across the earth to visit other neighborhoods.  Does the same wind blow all the way to Maple Grove and Northfield and tell my kids I'm thinking about them?  Does it blow all the way to the Atlantic Ocean?  Did it come all the way from the Pacific Ocean or only from the Dakota prairies?
A deep base sound hovers at the bottom notes of the night, like someone is holding down the base pedal on a grand organ in the Cathedral in the Pines.  Words of that familiar tune move in and out of the night …

"Daddy wore a happy smile
When his bride
Came down the aisle
In that little old
Cathedral in the Pines.
When a baby filled their nest
She was taken to be blessed
In that little old
Cathedral in the Pines."

The base notes get louder and louder in the night, and it becomes something else.  As a matter of fact, it becomes what it is!  It's a train chugging in the distance. What track is it on?  Is it running south of here or is it on the tracks that run through Wayzata?  Impossible to tell.  And it's the same way all summer long as I listen to the nighttime trains before I fall asleep, always trying to figure out how far away it is and where it might be headed.
Are there coyotes in Minnesota?  Is there another animal with a howl like that?  I'm reminded of Jack London and his stories of wolves in the north country.  The howl that I hear is very far in the distance, far, far, away, and it makes me sleepy. 
The coyote reminds me of old cow-boy movies and I see Gene Autry and Roy Rogers sitting by the campfire under the stars on a moonlit night, strumming their guitars.  "Get along little doggie, you know that Wyoming will be your new home."
Then a loud chopping sound agitates the night air and gets louder and scarier until it seems to be directly overhead.  It's a helicopter! It IS directly overhead and its spotlight shines into our bedroom window.  Maybe it's a flying saucer.  Maybe it's The Day the Earth Stood Still and Michael Rennie is about to knock on our door.
We have a lot of helicopters whirling around out here in Victoria.  I wonder if they're looking for escaped criminals or if they're planning maneuvers for World War III. 
Just last week, during daytime hours, I took pictures of a helicopter circling and swooping very low over Stieger Lake.  Were they chasing deer in Carver Park?  Isn't that against the law?  Were they taking aerial photos for developers?  Then why do they hang out over Stieger Lake?  I'm glad when the nighttime helicopter moves on.  There's nothing romantic, nostalgic, or captivating about a helicopter. 
One morning last week I swear I woke to the crowing of a rooster.  I lay still, listening intently, straining to get it accurate, wondering if it might belong to Jerry Michel.  Jerry brings me fresh eggs sometimes, but that doesn't mean he's got roosters.  Laying hens don't crow, do they?
I love open windows onto the world, be it day or night -- as long as there are screens to keep out the mosquitoes.  I welcome the whoosh of springtime and other sounds that drown, for a time, the ice-cube maker, the mantel clock, the water softener, and hot water pipes.  But tell me, if you can, what makes the whooshing sound?
                                                                   ~Sue