Full moon, high heat, what’s the difference. I am turning. Here I sit, swamped in four straight days of humidity. Here I sit, sleepless and groggy, growing a little meaner by the minute. I am wired this way. Prolonged exposure to weather soup, the kind that keeps me wet even when not moving, evaporates my focus, patience and what small measure of civility I own, makes papers stick to my arms when I sit to work, prolonged exposure to weather like this undoes me, changes me in beastly ways. Remember the rhyme: “Even man who is pure at heart and says his prayers at night, can become a raging dickhead when the humidity blooms and the effin sun is way too bright.” (Apologies to Talbot) Now, someone might be inclined to point out that Iowa had a heat index of 131 yesterday, as if that negates my melting as if because someone somewhere has it worse I am not drowning. I would love to be the person who says, “Oh, that part of the country has it much worse” and get over it, but unless I have a copy of Thich Nhat Hanh’s
Being Peace handy, it’s a lost cause. I am turning. Werewolf. Heatwolf? Sounds corny but feels right. In the past few weeks, after simmering in my skin for days, and feeling that unhinged
snap behind my eyes when I blink, I think this might be what turning feels like, the maddening pull to get out of your body and run screaming--or maybe it's more a sense of your body fracturing apart from
you and leaving. It is July and I am under the spell of the sun, though, and not the moon. Tomorrow the heat index here is supposed to reach 105. Howl.
