It was Hot & there was no Wind

We all went from having one life to live, to bracing ourselves for the end. We began drinking and driving, sleeping with strangers and telling off our bosses and best friends. With no time left, we couldn’t stop ourselves from telling everyone exactly how we felt two years ago when they spilled that cranberry and vodka on our beige suede love-seat.

We broke up with our boyfriends and girlfriends sighting the need to be free now that the end was not just coming, but was here. The dogs slept on the bed, nestled in blankets filling up the empty space. We wanted to be free, but not alone.

Two blocks from my house the looting at a Toys R Us was so bad that parents began using their children for protection. But no one saw the promise in our youth now that the world was in shambles, now that hurricanes and earthquakes were literally blowing us off our shaking foundation.

The tiny armor was useless. The future was about to be over.

I lied awake that night listening to the evacuation sirens telling us to go anywhere, but also nowhere. I tried to sleep but the sky was filled with thick hail that beat against the roof until holes broke through and created the sky lights we always talked about installing. News reports blared from the living room with nothing to say except “this is the end." The hope from their voices felt more like a promise than a threat.

112 Main Street

The summer that 22 people died from heat exhaustion on the east coast before August 1st, was the same year I drove 450 miles to say goodbye to a person I barely knew.

As the sweat pooled around the back of my knees I couldn't get the tiny yellow-shingled apartment out of my head. The heat index reached 115 before noon; all I could remember was the month we spent with no air conditioning, sitting on the roof watching the pavement sizzle. The fans blew hot air against our faces and your bangs stuck to your forehead.

Everywhere the heat was making people crazy. Not the put a leash on your cat and take her for a run crazy; the getting married and buying homes with central air crazy. Couples started trading in their vacation homes for summer camps and family reunions, claiming that now was the time to start appreciating one another.

The 11 o'clock news reported on drowning victims swallowing salt water to stay hydrated- fathers openly wept on camera. These images should have broken our hearts, but the heat barreled down so hard that no one could feel anything. We walked around numb.

That's around the time people started saying “I love you” when they actually meant “get away from me”. None of us wanted to be alone if this was the end, because holding a strangers hand is better than reaching out to empty space. At least that's what the statistics proved; the new baby boom would hit that coming spring. Articles were written questioning if the new Summer of Love was upon us- Could it be- had the heat saved humanity?

When I made it to your parents’ house I was greeted by the same light house that welcomed me some 5 years before. It stood creating a shadow on the lake, cooling off the sand just enough to make it bearable for visitors and a little too cool and crowded for the locals. The beach below was littered with bodies and empty towels, sitting on the pier all I could feel was sweat as I watched the people sizzle.

Star Spangled

By Monday afternoon it's actually the Fourth of July but we all seem a little less patriotic and a little more burned out. What’s left of the sparklers have all drowned in the pool and they look meek; now water damaged, the level of danger has escaped them.

We’re all craving sleep and salads, and mango tea with antioxidants to help our bodies detoxify. I’m begging for a couch with a recliner built in, but all I can find is a bench swing so I’m texting you telling you I miss you. I mean to say I miss your comforter and pillows but I know you are part of the package. You don't notice the difference in my tone, or if you do, you choose not to acknowledge it. I continue to complain, you continue to ignore.

To a stranger, this looks more like a battlefield than a backyard. Six of us are sprawled out on towels across the patio with a handful of empty beer cans cradling our red bodies. We’re not sun kissed or sun tanned yet, but here’s to hoping we all agree. Anyone in the grass is risking lying in vomit - we keep saying vomit and laughing like it’s both the best and funniest thing we’ve ever heard. Some of actually do vomit during the conversation.

With my head against the concrete I'm thinking about how I could be happy with less: less work, less scheduling, less time spent trying to find a moment to breathe and actually just breathing. Thinking all of this is making dizzy or the lack of alcohol is making me dizzy or the clouds going too fast for my eyes is making dizzy.

I start to remember the details; they are hazy but there: you walking up the driveway in a bright yellow t-shirt the first day we met- me in black pants and a white flowery button up shirt with a white belt sitting above my waist. I had on black wedges too, but they flew off my feet into the bushes while you spun me around. Your smile was something that people have called infectious.

I can't find my shoes when I finally leave the party, but I'm also not convinced I had any shoes to begin with. (You’ll say that I argued the same point with you in the past and that I lose a lot of shoes. I admit to nothing.) There's a dog barking down the street and I take the East Street route home to make sure it’s okay. After a few blocks, I get tired and sit on the curb and watch the heat rise off the pavement.

Thin Lines

You now worry that if you both develop narcolepsy who will set the alarm before bed? And if sweater dresses go out of style- what will you do with all those leggings in the closet? How will you cope with wearing jeans and shirts that stop at your midriff or don’t have hemlines? The thought of wearing a belt that doesn’t sit on your hips is something you are not mentally ready to accept. So you stay awake for the sunrise trying to decide which is more important: a green scarf or a pair of yellow peep-toe flats. They both can not fit in the overnight bag that is going to save your life.

Driving to Seneca Lake the towns remind me of a trip we took to Massena. When we stop, I want to ask other people if they agree. The small lanes of cross traffic make me feel calm at stop lights as people take their time getting from one side of the street to the other. I wonder if they’ve ever sat at the stop sign on US-11 confronted with a sign for Lake Placid and one for County Route 15. Part of me wants to know which way they chose. Part of me is only curious about where you have been. I don’t ask either- about the signs or roads.

Even though it's March, your bones beg for warmth but you're not interested in trying to cover the outcome of running 37 miles a week on an empty stomach. Instead, you sit shivering at your desk, sucking your stomach against the back of your rib cage. The words from your boss travel through your brain like your breathing patterns- Breathe, hold, breathe -repeat. That’s how the nine to five routine became a 9 to 5 dress size.

I don’t watch the Price is Right anymore but last week, while repacking my overnight bag, I caught the show case showdown and saw it was Drew Carey hosting. The entire scene made me feel uncomfortable, like I was cheating on Bob Barker while listening to someone else encourage me to neuter my pets. It is things like not being able to depend on game show hosts to stick around that keep me up at night. If that doesn't same something about America's phobia to commitment then I don't know what does.

I have always had an uncanny ability to tell a convincing story. And as I watch you dance around a calculated and practiced truth, I question your sincerity with a raised eyebrow. In your version of the story, I did all this only to have you wipe your own sweat on my forehead as proof that you were in fact real, and there- 100%. You tell me that if nothing else, I am able to bend the truth with such finesse that you not only find yourself believing my worldly fiction but convincing others of it too. I say, "You remember things I don't."

I feel better when later in the week I learn that he was once a marine, but that doesn't mean I don't have my doubts about Drew Carey being able to convince me to get my pets neutered.

The Erie Canal

A time that feels long ago but really isn’t, I am sitting on the back of a motorcycle with my white knuckles digging into the driver. I'm yelling "faster!" over the motor and into his ear. I remember that at the time I can’t tell if he is scared too, but I know as he turns around to give me a thumbs up my grip is going to tighten.

The same time that I am picturing also includes an early morning along the canal with fishing poles sitting idly as the morning haze burns off. A time when none of us had jobs or furniture that matched and we lived with camping chairs and ate spider dogs by open fire. What people called getting by was what we thought of as living the life.

On the beaches of Tampa that time is coming back. The scene is playing out like a modern day Normandy and the soldiers coming at me are crispy 20-somethings invading the coastal battlefield. They are armed with surf boards and protected by ray bans; barefoot as they trample through the sand you want to join them, you want to learn from them and be taken prison in this lifestyle.

I lie across the sand while I take lessons from these warriors as they teach me to not agonize over life’s left turns. Here, Robert Frost has been taken literal and they are living his words. I can not stress where I am going or where I should plan to go because the pressing matters revolve around tan lines and the threat of raccoon eyes.

There are no questions about where you belong when the most calm and clear waters are beckoning you. Saying no is not an option and after just a few hours you learn the sun is infectious. The attitudes are that of people nestled not crammed between hundreds of your soon-to-be best friends, all applying tanning oil instead of SPF50. And so I don't feel so out of place when I wish aloud for UV rays to work faster.

The heat isn't how I remember it last summer, all the complaints I owned so righteously have turned into one long smile across my now sun-kissed face. I find myself embracing the thick heavy air as I step outside, sucking the humidity deep into my lungs.

That same feeling, which again doesn’t feel so far away, hits as beads of sweat form on my forehead while I sip coffee on the steps: this is how it always is or has been.

The Forum

The problem with trying to love a writer doesn’t surface until you realize that to them are you a character. The subtlety of their lessons are exposed when you try flattery- You learn that all the imaginative words you come up with will sound forced when you read them later on. You’ll be embarrassed by how naive and open you were with someone so critical.

My mother use to call it lying; when I would twist the facts of a story as I re-told it. I called it creativity. Later, in college, I learned that a good writer is always editing and revising the details of what actually happened until they find a truth they are happy with. However you look at it… lying, being creative, or revising… once you cross over into the life of a writer you are never the same. You will find yourself lost inside a catalog full of the strongest convictions you've ever heard being negated over and over.

When you meet, it happens on page 125. The season is fall and that’s what you tell your friends. She tells you that it's the best season because apple picking is one of her favorite things to do. She wins you over with a story about how she has to taste at least one apple from each tree before she commits to picking from it. This way, she doesn't risk getting home and hating the taste of all her hard work. She finishes the story by adding that it was true, and describes herself at 7 year old holding a bag of tasteless apples. She pictures you, picturing her as a child and your smile gives you away. That’s what she puts down.

Following her example, you learn to appreciate pumpkin patches and before you know it, you’re drinking apple cider out of a jug. You have no idea where the jug came from, but you don’t ask. You’re happy. You even catch yourself stepping on leaves and listening to the crunch as your heel then toe, then heel then toe presses down on your way to work. She pictures you doing this, thinking of her and chuckling to yourself- she sees it. She creates your movements.

By November, you learn that the weeks between fall and winter are her arch nemesis. Something has crushed her heart but you can't find what. If you knew better, you would jump to page 32 and discover before you were introduced, she knew a man who was born in November that broke her heart. All of this was very quick- the relationship did not last the chapter. You read that all that remains of this man is an email kept behind a picture in her living room.

On page 145, when you look for the email, you discover it doesn’t exist. It’s not until you are surrounded by disassembled frames and broken glass do you turn to page 75 when she burns all her past love letters as a way to start fresh.

What’s happening here is that you are learning you never had a chance. Before you can get the words from your mouth she’s already written them down how she wants to hear them. She will have written you in and out as fast as you can say “I love you.”

And that is when you realize that the problem with loving a writer is that they know before you when you love them. They've described the pain you feel when they leave a room so vividly that you find yourself crying at night. While you lay in bed alone craving her warmth, you do not remember missing her at that moment, but the feeling is so sudden you are overcome with emotion and cannot stop yourself from weeping. She pictures this, you wrapped up in blankets of scent sleeplessly lying in bed, and she adds it in.

If you’re lucky, on page 324 she’ll refer to you in passing and you will notice its you by characteristic only – “I once knew this guy who would always get up for karaoke after 3 beers. He sang the same annoying Lady Antebellum song off key, but knew all the words perfectly. What was the name of that song?” She’ll add that she can’t remember your name, but focus most of the paragraph on the name of the song. Sometimes, you want to call her and let her know the song was not even by Lady Antebellum.

On page 63, she is telling someone “I hate apples- always have, always will... I have a weak stomach and the skin gets stuck in the spaces between my teeth.”

Far & Wide

The fear people have is so intense and sincere that it scares those around them. It scares people who know the people that are around those who came face to face with the inevitable. You find yourself rethinking the decision to not take the new job in Minnesota and checking your blood pressure before your coffee in the morning. Jogging more. Laughing more. You are thankful that whoever they are, isn't you; because there is no boogie man after you face death. There are only blood clots, fevers that lead to hallucinations and cold sweats that haunt you.