Again I have promised myself to find sleep before 1 am. Again, I am awake, working to catch-up with my life after the intense experience of the International Space University, Space Studies Program in Cork, Ireland.

A moth flutters between the lamp shade and bulb. A distant jet passes overhead, by the sound neither arriving to nor departing from Frankfurt International Airport which is just a few kilometres distance from where I sit. This enclosed space provides the deeply nourishing aroma of untreated pine, floor, walls, and ceiling. An enclosed half gazebo is my resting spot each night, in the back yard of a family friend in Rüsselsheim, Germany.

Small spaces. Safe spaces. A room just big enough for a bed and table lamp, both resting on the floor; an area rug and place to place wet shoes. This is what feels right to me. Not the opposite of wrong, but right as in comfortable, natural, and satisfying.

We are so much driven to embrace thick walls, insulated ceilings, and windows that reflect heat and block sound that we forget what it means to fall to sleep to the wondrous sound of raindrops, falling, one by one.