On the Heat

And no, I do not mean the recently crowned NBA Champions.

I mean the temperature, specifically, the high temperatures experienced here on the Eastern Seaboard this week, which have become for many, the grist of endless, banal conversation.  When you have nothing else to talk about, talk about the weather.  Hey..wait a second....never mind.

What I would like to do is talk about how wonderful the heat is.  In fact, until today, the only thing missing from the heat was the awesomeness of humidity too.  Today is in fact, the first day of the year in which I can walk around my front yard in the heat and feel the heaviness of air laden with moisture--a sure sign of rain/thunderstorms later today.

As long as I have recourse to air conditioning and/or a pool, I don't give a yank how hot it is outside.  I love the feeling I get when I walk out of the Pentagon for my walk across South Parking on hot, humid days.  One leaves the hermetically sealed coolness and is immediately assaulted by the blast furnace that is Northern Virginia.  Were I to have a walk of several miles ahead of me, I would be perhaps less enthusiastic about it.  But what happens in that half-mile or so is a teletransportation back to the summers of my nearly forgotten youth.  My brother Sean is a marvel of memories of our childhood--I remember next to nothing.  But what I do remember is waking up on those mornings before my Mom and Dad felt things were excruciating enough to turn the A/C on, and feeling the heaviness of the air, and listening to the amazing sounds of bugs and birds. As I walk (today) , I think about those first few moments of my (then) day, when nothing of consequence lay ahead of me, when no bills had to be paid, when no work/homework loomed large, when I didn't care who was President--when there was nothing but time and a world of possibility with which to fill it. 

I wonder sometimes if people passing me as I walk in the dread heat--be-Porkpied and sweating through the elbows of my shirts--think it odd that I do so with a wry smile.  But from my perspective, the memory is well worth smiling about.