If you can survive the heat of the desert year after year, I have learned that you can survive practically any other discomfort that comes your way. Not only survive but to learn to embrace it. From Tucson to New Orleans in June, well, I’ve touched 2 different kinds of heat. One chaffed me and the other burned me. In the end, hot is hot, whether you are sticky and wet or dusty and dry.
The heat draws out the sweat and temper in ones head, it makes us move slower and look longer. Our thirst cannot be quenched, but can be drowned with a bottle of ice-cold beer. We become sleepy and restless at the same time.
I look for signs. When those big monsoon clouds embrace Tucson, the excitement in the air is contagious. We are all waiting for those clouds to burst, and when the clouds don’t burst with rain, we burst from our own sweat and deal with our own inner storms.
The Palo Verde beetle emerges in late June early July- its birth from the ground is a calling that summer is indeed only temporary. The mass of flying queen ants also make themselves known, swarming in a frenzy of excitement. I know when my prickly pear fruit ripen that August is just around the corner. August, the long last run of the summer.
All these things mark the passing of the summer and as each year goes by, the more I look for them in anticipation.
Watching movies such as Street Car Named Desire, and Long Hot Summer make me feel that I’m not alone in the heat. That heat alone creates a good setting for an interesting story and that I may be a part of that story, or of some story. The main object of summer is not to stay cool, but hydrated and to embrace what the desert has to offer during this trying time of the year, because the good news is- is that there will be an ending to this summer story.
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