This business of sleeping sounds like irony, because in reality a city like this never truly sleeps, though compared to other cities in the world, this one sleeps a little more.

I say this because after nine in the evening (I'm a constant witness, living right in the heart of the city), certain stretches of avenues as important as Reforma become almost ghostly, and that's without even mentioning specific neighborhoods.

I think it has to do with everything people say happens in so many parts of this city, but we've had the pleasant surprise of feeling quite safe here. A little more so every day, because when you're far away (as we were for that year and a half in Bangkok), the bad news (which is always the best-selling, most exportable kind) sounds worse than it is.

Today, after the tragic accident of the plane that came down right at Reforma and Periférico, killing so many innocent people who were leaving work or simply walking by when fate caught up with them, we decided to go eat in Polanco and then see a Lebanese film.

Since driving, especially for me, feels more like a chore every day (plus our son, who's visiting with his Thai girlfriend, had taken the car), we hailed a taxi.

Since we had a couple of hours to spare between dinner and the movie, we decided to have coffee on Avenida Masaryk and enjoy the spectacle of watching people in their daily comings and goings. The rush, the phones, the noise that distinguishes big cities like this one and that, without our even noticing, gradually sets our nerves on edge.

The era we're living in has turned into a race to pack as many things as possible into the eighteen-plus hours that many people put to use trying to get everything done. Because people who want to do things and have fun walk through life like sleepwalkers.

Why all this running? To avoid reflecting on whether what we're actually doing is leading us toward what we think we want? Today more than ever I ask myself: how did we get here?

Meanwhile, the two of us were enjoying our coffee, and I was monopolizing my husband's attention with the story of a book I'm reading, one that confirms what I believe I discovered in Asia.

Suddenly we began to notice far too many people walking in the opposite direction from where the movie theater was. Too many people talking on their phones at the same time, though since ambulatory telephonitis keeps spreading by the day, we weren't too surprised. But when, at the same time, ambulance sirens, police sirens, and other kinds multiplied and grew louder, and the constant circling of helicopters overhead intensified as well, I decided to ask someone what was going on.

It turned out that a gas pipe had ruptured while they were excavating for one of those construction projects that keep producing enormous buildings reaching ever closer to the sky, yet, in my view, drifting ever further from what the sky represents in a spiritual sense.

The gas was escaping, and they began evacuating streets, shopping centers, and nearby places, eventually covering several kilometers.

But even with the frightened faces on the Jewish community that had clustered on a corner, children and all, once we confirmed it wasn't going to be dangerous, we went ahead to see our film.

On the way out, a taxi driver tried to charge us an outrageous amount for the ride, so we decided to walk back to our apartment.

Since we live as far as the Monumento a la Madre, it was very interesting to see just how ghostly certain stretches of Paseo de la Reforma become at that hour.

As our son's girlfriend had put it: "Given the traffic I see in this city, it seems like an enormous number of people live here, but they're all in cars, hardly anyone walks." Her point of comparison is Bangkok, obviously, a city that doesn't sleep even in the small hours. You can walk anywhere, at any time.

We enjoyed the solitude of the sidewalks, the noise, the exhaust from cars and buses. The few other pedestrians stepped aside when they spotted humans approaching in the distance.

The ones who didn't step aside at all were the ducks peacefully resting on the fountain in the Parque del Reloj in Polanco. They seemed to trust those of us reckless enough to walk at night far more than the crowds that pass through during the day.

Later, when we reached the level of the Auditorio Nacional, we had the chance to see the photographs and reproductions of Leonora Carrington that have been on display there for so long. Because we've almost always walked on the other side, and from a car you only see one face of those iron easels that show her work and scenes from her life on both sides.

Sometimes I need a certain amount of adrenaline, and I particularly enjoyed this day in which everything seemed headed toward catastrophe but, fortunately, wasn't, and there was no explosion after all.

I can already picture all those families in the Jewish neighborhood giving thanks to God and sleeping peacefully in their apartments on Homero and Horacio, once every media outlet broadcast the news that the escaping gas wasn't flammable and everything was under control.

You have to trust what you hear, even those of us who are well aware of the volume of lies these outlets traffic in every day, but you have to sleep, and especially so when your city is sleeping too.

Sanuk (a Thai word for the pleasurable joy of simply enjoying life)