Summer in New England

Summer in New England means that I carry around my umbrella and my sunglasses. And I have had occasion to use both of them within the space of ten minutes.

An Oasis in the Desert of Time

For the last week, it's been very hot here. Temperatures in the 90's, which is unusual for us. But it happened last summer, and I somehow suspect it will become an annual occurrence.

The heat wave finally broke last night. It's so pleasant to wake up in the morning with the blanket wrapped around you, and to feel the cold air on your face. It's like finding an oasis.

But the desert that we were in was temporal, not spatial. The heat arrived, and then it moved on. Time is a funny thing. It surrounds us, but we don't think about it much, as a daily thing (at least I don't). We think of ourselves as living in a place, as travelling from one place to another. How do we view our travels through time?

I think about the oases that I've discovered, in the deserts of time. Sometimes bad weather just moves in - there's no help for it. You think it will never leave, and then one day . . . there's a change in the weather.

The seasons of our lives. The things you can't hurry, or postpone. The thunderstorms that sweep through. Oh, many times I have welcomed the storm. I want everything to be shaken up, tossed around, swept away. (In fact, I miss seeing the storms of my childhood. These tall buildings block any view of the lightning in the sky.)

Weather is a thing that happens. Like life.