Look at them! Look at them in their bare legs poking out from beneath shorts and flowing skirts, feet exposed in sandals, arms soaking up the sun in short sleeves and halter tops, saying to each other: What a beautiful day! Isn’t the sun lovely! It’s so warm!
Then look at me. I stumble down the street. The summer heat leaves me exhausted, not invigorated. I’m soaked with sweat. I feel heavy, like a bronze statue being burned by the sun.
I am not a summer girl. I have dreaded summer all my life. My mother tells me as a baby, I could not be comforted when the temperature hit 80. As I girl, I’d break into the forbidden territory of my parents’ bedroom, which boasted the house’s only air conditioner – just to turn the unit on and stand in front of it, feeling my skin dry and cool, and my mind clear, and my migraines, which were often brought on by heat, recede. My mother would insist we spend the day outside in the heat of summer, despite my argument of ‘I’m reading! You should be happy!” I discovered the tool shed in the backyard, which never got any sun, sheltered as it was by the trees, was always cool. I’d sit in there with the spiders.
I feel confused and dizzy and nauseous when the mercury (remember mercury?) creeps above 75. Still, I’m expected to get out and enjoy this beautiful weather! Let’s go to the park! Let’s walk around! Let’s see this grand city of New York we call home! I pack the six handkerchiefs I’ll need for the trail of sweat I’ll leave behind me and attempt to make the best of it. When it gets above 85, I stick ice packs in my pocketbook and press them to throat. My San Diego-bred husband doesn’t understand when he tries to toss an arm around me and I shake him off. “It’s too much, “I say. My husband has a core temperature of approximately 3,000 degrees, which is delightful in January, but not so much in July.
So enjoy all your volleyball and beach weekends and summer nights. I’ll come out to play when the temperature to drops to around 30, when the rest of you are complaining it’s too cold to go out.
