The heat has been relentless this summer. I find it more difficult to endure as I grow older. I can’t believe that I spent the first twenty years of my life in a home without air conditioning. Somehow the hot days of summer in Texas barely registered with me back then. Now I’ve become like a fragile southern belle who wilts upon emerging into the relentless sun.
This year has been especially brutal with record setting temperatures in the high nineties before it was even July. Some parts of my state are experiencing highs of one hundred four and rain has been elusive. I’ve had to do my gardening in the early morning hours or just before sunset when a slight breeze finds its way into my yard. Even the neighborhood swimming pools are mostly empty during the hottest hours of the day.
Where I live having constantly high temperatures is a reason for concern. It means that the ocean and gulf waters are becoming perfect breeding grounds for massive hurricanes. Around here we won’t breathe a sigh of relief until the end of October when the season has passed and we have once again been spared from nature’s fury. This year has a number of us very worried we seen this pattern before and it rarely turns out well.
I think the whole world is exhausted and even a bit crazy right now. We have witnessed a lifetime’s worth of tragedies in a very short span of time. Covid-19 is still claiming victims, thankfully at a much slower rater, but vulnerable people that I know continue to catch it and experience harsh symptoms and extended recovery time. I hate to think of what might have happened to them without their vaccines and boosters because they have been very sick. So it would be nice if Mother Nature gave us a bit of a reprieve this hurricane season. We are so weary and the thought of a furious storm is a bit more discomfiting than usual.
i watch the war in Ukraine from afar but my hearts is so heavy for the people there. It’s tempting to look away, but I know that doing so would be wrong. I want to support the efforts of the citizens there, but feel as though my offerings are so small. I worry about China hinting that they want to regain Taiwan and rumblings that China may assist Russia in taking Ukraine. I feel a bit overwhelmed by the fact that such things are happening at the very time when it would be nice for the whole world to take a bit of a breather from the tragedy of the pandemic. in a perfect universe we would all be getting along, but instead our human natures are trending toward hurting and taking advantage. A big hurricane during a time like this will just be a poison cherry on top of the insanity that is our reality.
I have literally lost count of the mass shootings. I find myself being more vigilant than ever when I go out. I’m not avoiding interactions with my fellow humans but I’m being cautious like I was when I was growing up with a single mom. I had become much more relaxed and naive about what might happen as I went about my daily routines but recent events have reminded me to always be aware of my surroundings. I find myself searching the lay of the land and considering what I might do if disaster were to strike. It’s the kind of thing my mother taught me so that we would be able to live normal lives without a father. I’ve had to resurrect my skills. It saddens me that we can’t agree on how to change this trend, but that seems to be part of the problems we face as well. Sadly the heat that we are experiencing is yet one more problem that we have ignored for far too long.
We have so many difficulties that we must address but we keep getting distracted by our differences. We somehow can’t agree on solutions, so we tend to just keep quibbling rather than studying the issues and making progress toward finding solutions that actually work. In all honestly it both saddens and angers me. It worries me as well. There is great danger in always be at odds.
On a small level life is good. I enjoyed a fabulous Fourth of July celebration with my neighbors. We convened in the cooler hours of the evening and munched on barbecue, grilled vegetables and desserts. We danced on the driveway while children were frolicking in the grass. We enjoyed an amazing fireworks display on our very diverse cul-de-sac. Nobody worried about politics, religion, ethnicity or sexual orientation. We were just happy neighbors enjoying each other and our freedoms. If a hurricane comes we will surely band together once again to help each other during the storm and its aftermath. I just wish our little United Nation of people on our street might be an example for everyone in all corners of the globe. That would certainly make for a better more peaceful world and maybe we would finally get serious about dealing with the climate that worsens with each passing year.
I suspect that most people feel a bit like me. It’s way too hot for comfort and the world itself is all too often on fire. We could surely use a respite, a bit of rain without flooding, an end to wars and shootings. We still need to heal and that will take some time. Maybe the first step lies in checking on our neighbors and really caring about them even when they are very different from ourselves. Even when it is hot we have the power to cool things down one person at a time.
All It Takes Is A Little Love 