Heat! By Sharon Flood Kasenberg

Heat

Beneath the sun's relentless rays
my thoughts are turning foggy -
this torrid heat's gone on for days
and even nights are soggy.
Steam rises from the city streets
that are almost deserted;
the shortest walk my strength defeats -
I'm overly exerted.
I'm swimming in humidity -
my body saturated -
while heat zaps my lucidity
and leaves me agitated.
I've never felt such gratitude
for air-conditioned shelter;
no comfort even for the nude -
outdoors it's like a smelter.
I feel no urge to cook or bake,
my appetite is waning,
but as I strive my thirst to slake
such water weight I'm gaining!
The grass threatens to blow away,
the flowers wilt, dejected.
I hope this heat's not here to stay -
this needs to be corrected.
I know some love this summer heat
and baking in the hot sun,
but my baked brain admits defeat
and wants the heat to be done!

Sharon Flood Kasenberg, August 2006

Yikes! It's been hot out there! Hot enough to fry an egg on the sidewalk, or to burn your knee on the surface of a flatbed truck. (Which happened to a friend on Sunday.) Yup - there's no denying that it's been hot.

I guess last time I felt bothered enough by the heat to write about it was in the summer of 2006. I was working in a very tiny (but blessedly air-conditioned) health food store a fifteen minute walk from my where I lived. Those walks to and from work seemed crazily long, and I'd arrive at work, or back at home, feeling like a badly wrung out (and nasty smelling!) dish cloth. The store was located in one of those little neighbourhood plazas that rely heavily on foot traffic, and those hot summer days were eerily quiet. I spent a lot of time trying to write poems - which were often less than stellar. (This one was pretty bad, so I edited extensively.) My mind doesn't function well in heat, and when you add a liberal dose of menopause into the mix of that era, you can imagine how my poor brain felt like it was being boiled in the sweat of my misery.

Some people love heat. They bask in it like lizards sunning on rocks. I marvel that they don't actually melt into gelatinous goo.

"Is it still nice out?" asked a server in the sub shop a few days back. We'd gone in to grab a few sandwiches rather than warming up the kitchen by turning on the oven to cook. I tried to think back to the last day I'd considered "nice." Was it last Tuesday or Wednesday? My heat addled memory was uncertain. For at least a week I've been giving my plants extra water, staying indoors most of the day, and taking walks in the evening when the sun isn't quite as hot. You know it's bad when you step outside at 8:00 pm and still feel like you're walking into a convection oven.

Every morning I check the weather to see extreme heat warnings. When will it end? If this isn't global warming, what is?

Some people try to trivialize the heat in their area.

"It's a dry heat", folks in Arizona will tell you. "So much easier to bear than where it's humid!"

I'm sorry, but when you start talking about extremely hot weather it's terrible whether it's dry or humid. Whether I get boiled or fried, I'll still get cooked!

I get no sympathy when I gripe about the heat.

"It's better than the cold!" people tell me emphatically.

I disagree. In the winter I can add layers of clothing, but in summer there's only so much I'm willing to take off.

I've never loved heat. As a child growing up in Northern Ontario it wasn't that much of an issue, thankfully. Our house wasn't air-conditioned, and I slept upstairs. On those nights when it was uncomfortable in our room, my sister and I would relocate to a folding bed in the basement rec room. It was rustic, but bearable. On the hottest days, my father might pull out the sprinkler and let us run through it. A few times it seemed oppressively warm at our cottage too - which is where we'd go to try to escape the heat in the Soo. I acquired sunburns on the shores of Lake Superior on days when the sand burned our feet as we danced across it to the water's edge. Luckily the lake could always be counted on to cool us off! Where is that darned lake when I need it?

The problem with days like this is that you can't avoid the heat entirely. You still need to do a few things outside. Miraculously, weeds don't stop growing no matter how bad the drought. Every day this week I've gone out in the morning to water plant pots and weed a section of my flowerbeds. I come in dripping sweat and thinking that surely between the perspiring I do and the scant amount I ingest on these hot days I'll shed a few pounds, but it hasn't happened yet. Part of the problem is that I'm too sedentary when I'm housebound. Apparently sweeping and vacuuming aren't enough exercise. I might need to start running laps in this big old house - down the main floor hallway, up the steps, through the upper hall, down the back stairs - and repeat...

The worst of it is the brain rot that sets in when I'm housebound. Sheesh - even though I really like my house I've barely been out of it in more than a week. Sunday at our community's Canada Day celebrations I tried to socialize, but every time I opened my mouth nothing but gibberish escaped.

As I type this post I see clouds gathering outside my window. Oh - bring on a summer storm to wet my parched grass and provide a break from this heat...but the clouds roll on by, mocking me as they pass.

"Save me, Save me!!" screams my heat scrambled brain.

I haven't melted yet - but I think I hear sloshing between my ears.