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I don't know nothin' about energy -- Mama! Don't make me write about energy, I'm a lazy man!

I suppose the most energetic place I can think of in Cleveland -- that I visit regularly, anyway -- is Terminal Tower, home of Tower City, where folks bustle on all sorts of transitions -- off the "rapid" trains, up out of the bowels of the building and away to jobs downtown; off the street, down and away to their homes; in on their lunch hours to grab a bite to eat and buy a knickknack for somebody's wedding shower; in to kill some time before the ballgame; on the way from school -- there's no lack of bustle there.

I never seem to have anything in particular to do when I am there, actually, so I watch the scene as objectively as I can. The mall has a "dancing" fountain running the length of the old train station's passenger hall, in which computerized valves squirt jets of unnaturally unturbulent water through the air to land with a wet smack upon a stone stage with some sort of drain beneath it. It's always good for a few minutes of contemplation, though the music accompanying the dance hasn't changed in 14 years and is a tad too loud. I suspect they choose the classical stuff to discourage kids from hanging around. It's an active, happy place, though, even if security guards in Smokey the Bear hats giving you the eyeball.

Fat, middle-aged men aren't considered security risks, but the way I dress, I am sure they're looking for me to start asking shoppers for money.

You want energy?  Stand in a high place and watch the vehicles streaming along the downtown freeways at rush "hour."  All those people on their way somewhere! Or drive down I-71 to Columbus, and fall into step with the stream of travelers there. Molecules in a vast liquid, we move, for the most part, with the same lack of turbulence the gouts of dancing water in Tower City do. Then see the road constrict below Medina County, or around some construction project, and watch as the traffic becomes dense, then sprays out on the other side. Unlike the gases in the refrigerator, though, traffic loses energy when it slows and heats up when it begins to expand again.

But for my money, give me a lack of energy. What I seek most often is peace and quiet, for it's harder to find and easier to lose. Let me step out into a snowfall, or into the woods about lunchtime -- after the birds have finished their morning song -- and stand and listen to the tiny sounds around me. The foraging chipmunks. The scritching of leaf upon leaf in an invisible eddy of air. The hiss of flakes settling upon the ground.

Such a quiet is mighty, for all that is fragile. It can work its way into your soul, and heal what is chafed and inflamed, and give you rest.