everyone agrees the only thing the east coast really has over the west are thunderstorms and fireflies.
last week it was 100 degrees for two days. the first day, struggling to focus on work, i couldn’t figure out why it was so impossible until i noticed a gust of hot air cough through the window. later the cashier at the grocery store described leaving his house in the morning akin to opening the oven door. hot breezes should be a meteorological paradox, yet instead they are cruelly possible.
eventually the clouds gathered, and the air cooled. it got humid like the east coast. sticky heat isn’t what many transplants from less temperate climates signed up for, certainly, but one night there was a suddenly blink of light, like the flash of a camera. shortly after the rain poured—a refreshing and foreign type of summer rainfall, largely unheard of with the aridity lasting throughout the warm months. out on the street, people ducked under overhangs to wait it out, except for the two ladies who frolicked triumphantly. the sky flashed and rumbled, the air charged feverish energy. it slowed to a lighter shower, but i monitored the windshield wipers on passing cars to determine when it was safe to walk home for the books in my tote bag. once back home, i finished the last of the gooseberry fool: tart, vaguely sweet, gooseberry-flavored whipped cream—it tastes like the combined expectations for summer.
a few more sticky and warm days followed until the temperature really dropped. now it’s rainy and cool and at times almost gloomy. i can remember strange summer days like this back east, cool and springlike, except everything is intense, full-on green. with the right view your windows are full of it. every day you feel like you need to put a sweatshirt on, but a sweatshirt is usually too much. the decreased light gets confusing as it’s not quite the dreariness of winter but far from the sharp angled glare of cloudless days at this latitude. gardens seem happy, sleep is effortless. yet, as always, there will be some weather-griping hobbyist at the bank making known their disappointment.
