Basking in the heat

We’re on the fourth or fifth day of a record-breaking heat wave in the Northeast, and making my way sluggishly through it reminds me of how much I love hot weather. Really hot weather.

Actually, what I love is not so much really hot weather as really seasonal weather, or extremes of any kind when they fall at the times they should. I like frigid temperatures in January and blizzards in February; muddy messy thaws in March; cold dry winds in November. And, of course, picture-perfect sunny blue skies with warm sunshine in June and a crisp breeze in October.

I especially like hot weather at night. I like the feeling of going outside long after the sun has set and feeling air on my skin that’s warmer than a typical indoor temperature. It makes me think I could walk all night and feel safe and comfortable.

But I also have to admit that earlier this summer, during our first hot spell, it occurred to me that a good part of my self-perception as someone who loves hot weather dates back to the time that I worked in an air-conditioned office building most of the day. During those years, the years that I came to think of myself as a big fan of heat waves, my exposure to the 90-plus degree temperatures was often limited to a quick optional foray outdoors during lunchtime and a walk after dinner.

Hot weather is just one of many things that takes on a different flavor when you are home caring for children, as I am these days during school vacation. It seems to me that in the past, being home on a very hot day meant sitting in the shade reading and sucking on ice cubes. Now it means getting everything done that I normally do – from writing articles on deadline to running loads of laundry – while trying not to let the climbing humidity make me unnecessarily irritable with the kids.

Yesterday, though, we broke down and turned on the air conditioning. My husband and I generally take a bit of Puritan pride in how little we turn on the A/C. I don’t think we used it at all last summer, and the summer before I remember we turned it on just once, and that was because we were hosting a large party at our house. We’re smug about the fact that we don’t pamper ourselves with A/C; we just bask in the warm humid air.

Not this week, though, with temperatures reaching record-breaking three-figure numbers. And I have to say, the hot weather is a lot easier to enjoy when you have the option of escaping from it. Getting a good night’s sleep helps everyone’s disposition, too, and that’s a lot easier with the air conditioning on. So this week we’re relishing the heat in small doses: early-morning running, afternoons swimming in the pond, the shade of a fading day during Tim’s early evening baseball games.

And late at night I stand out on our front step just to breathe in the dense, damp, hay-scented hot summer air, taking comfort once again in the sense that I could walk for hours on a night like this.