It's Not the Heat, It's the Humility
Our cool and pleasant spring just took a sharp hairpin turn into a week of heat dome 90-degree blast furnace temps and so naturally, we’re heading out later this afternoon to refill the propane tank for the grill. The mulberry saplings just off the porch are showing us mercy as they stretch their long branches over the deck and give us early afternoon shade that doesn’t quit until the following day’s lunchtime. One of our nephews is here trimming the driveway and will soon help me install the window A/C unit in the living room (I managed that last year by myself and we turned it on once). All that, and trying not to move around so much, should get us through the week.
When it gets like this, my early morning walks are a gauntlet-running adventure. Our patient and ever-hungry field spiders and orb spinners work overtime overnight to stretch their invisible gossamer nets across the paths and I barge into them full-face, blinking their sticky silken strands across my eyelashes as I call out apologies over my shoulder for wrecking their functional artwork. Every mosquito and biting fly within a 50-mile radius clears its agenda to find any exposed bit of my skin even though I’ve doused myself in all varieties of insect repellant I found in the bathroom medicine cabinet. I trudge forward, a well-marinated bug snack on two legs, windmilling my arms to distract them before they find my ears and forehead again. The air is thick with humidity and darn near sliceable. There’s not much point to hanging a load of laundry on the line—it will remain damp for days and still smell sour from perspiration and the minerals in our well water. Yesterday I got the standing floor fans out of the attic, washed the dust from the blades and set them up in the living room and upstairs bedroom. We’ll go as long as we can without turning them on.
While it’s usually five to ten degrees cooler on the land (compared to the heat-soaked concrete and asphalt of the city just a short bus trip away), the heat still tugs at our limbs and slows us down, settling us into the deck chairs or onto the grassy shaded slope at the mouth of the meadow to rest for a spell after letting the chickens out for the day. I’m tempted to shave the cats but they haven’t asked for that yet. They lie flat on the deck at our feet, lapping occasionally from the bowls of water I’ve placed nearby. No one seems hungry (except those field spiders). We just want to be still as we contemplate our place in the universe. I long for the goosebumps of February.
And it’s only June.
Every season can bring you to your knees, call you to accept what you can’t control and prod you to move your way through the challenges of ice and straight-line winds and flooding creeks that swallow up your rows of cabbage and chard. I’m not sure we understood that when we unpacked all of our things and set up house and land-keeping here twenty-five years ago. We came with a thick filter of romantic naivete and innocent respect for the wildness that surrounded us. Over time, we’ve come to listen more deeply to what the acres of old cornfields really want (to become wooded and brambly again), pay close attention as the land’s next chapter mingles with ours and try our best to stay out of her way, keeping our footprints light and loving. Life forms much smaller than we are humble us daily as we press our weight into their worlds on the way to our cars or when we’re kneeling to weed the garden. Their retaliatory bites and stings seem a small burden to bear when we consider the impact of our presence among them. Some mornings I don’t walk just so the spiders can have a shot at a decent breakfast. I’ll find some other less invasive way to pray my day into existence.
Though I don’t scroll the weather apps as much anymore, I suspect this stretch of heat and humidity will pass and we’ll find ourselves hauling out the sweaters and boots again, keeping a watchful eye on the creek during the rainy weeks of early autumn. The cats will tuck in close as the air chills and we’ll eat more soup, letting the oven warm the kitchen while it bakes our homegrown potatoes to fluffy perfection.
Until then, I’ll remind myself that humidity is good for the skin and welcome the nudge to move more slowly through whatever remains of my summer life.
