Heat Wave in anticlimatic

When last we spoke I was puking my brains out. I thought it odd that I had the flu at all, since I had never had the flu before, and there was a reason for that. Wasn’t the flu. Few weeks later, after some really odd symptoms, I return to the doc and discovered that I was infested with Lyme disease. When the antibiotics started killing the bacteria off finally, my joints freaked out in the weirdest way. Jaw was swollen. Both shoulders. Thumb. Furthest back into the hand pinky joint. Today, half way through my dose, I feel normal for the first time since memorial day.

And it’s another record heat wave.

In a way I live for these extra hot summer nights. Sure, they’re miserable, and there’s no real escape from the heat. We put in a bonus window AC unit bringing the grand household total up to 2, one on each floor, and they barely put a dent in the wall of heat.

Hot hot nights like this have something in common with my diary here- both are time machines, or at the very least time portals.

We get just a few hot hot nights a year, and they always offer a rare opportunity for remembrance. And as such, I always recall the hot hot nights that came before. They play out in my mind like a movie I watch every holiday, whatever this holiday might be.

I think of my great grandmother’s box fan, and the sound of the 80s screen door slapping closed. I think of a group of young boys in kayaks at midnight on a bay as calm and sparkling as glass, just before it (and us) were crushed under a once in a decade storm. I think about the hammock I had at my first apartment high in the treetops, and the company I would keep from my lofty vantage almost as high as Orion himself. I think about Grove Street, strappy shoes, and a bike ride through clouds of lilacs.

The past used to seem like yesterday to me. Even the distant parts. But recently, the more I see the tole taken on everyone I’ve ever known, it feels so incredibly far behind me that it is a wonder I was alive that long ago.

Last updated June 18, 2024