Wayne Miller: Heat Wave, August 1947 (1947)

" … shirts that wrinkle far too easily in such low humidity."

When I was twenty-three, I experienced high humidity for the first time. I could not believe that people could tolerate living with it; every soldier in the Civil War wore a heavy, felt-wool uniform and still managed to move around in that stuff. I promptly contracted a severe case of sun poisoning, a condition I had previously been blissfully unaware of existing. It occurs when bright sunlight filters through extremely moist air. The effect seemed similar to what happens when sunlight passes through a well-focused magnifying glass. I blistered and felt seventh-circle-of-Hell horrible for a week, taking ice baths and slathering ineffective calamine lotion all over my upper body. I had never really bought into the concept of an Old Testament vengeful God until that experience. I wear long sleeves and havelocks through my summers now.

Summers here near the center of the universe feature a drier heat, the sort that vacationers to the Southwest use to explain away triple-digit temperatures. They say, "But it's a dry heat," as if that statement alone might lower a temperature by several significant degrees. Our humidity, such as it is, wafts in on ocean breezes or evaporates up and out of the soil. It's rarely above forty percent relative to what would be needed to achieve what Easterners and Southerners accept as baseline normal during this season. Here, it often cools down overnight, allowing us to open every window in the Villa Vatta Schmaltz, place box fans on each sill, and fill the place with refreshingly fresh air. Bugs, which thrive in areas of high relative humidity, hardly bother here. The jumping spiders and cats seem pleased when a few flies gather in their parlor.

Outside work in July seems best accomplished before too awfully late in the morning. Some nights, the outside temperature doesn't manage to slip below seventy degrees, and these invariably invite the worst days. I feel dissuaded from venturing outside then, even in the very early morning, for I can already feel the coming scorching sun. On these days, I invent chores in the basement, which holds a wine cellar mid-fifty-degrees temperature year-round. I do not understand how the cats, who still sport their winter coats, tolerate staying outside on those days, but they seem to. They only hesitantly agree to return inside, often insisting upon taking their suppers alfresco on the back deck, too. They might finally wander in through one of the left-open windows around ten in the evening, but leave again before the first morning light.

I've been guilty of insisting that it's not the heat but the humidity that kills me when actually, it's the Humildity that does. The bare humility involved in tolerating extreme heat quickly wears me down. I do not consider myself to be especially filled with hubris, either. You will never find me wearing short pants, for instance, especially not outside in the sun, or short-sleeves, either. My mother was particularly susceptible to melanomas. I have not yet spent a minute of my life basking on any sandy beach. If forced to visit a beach in the Summer season, I find some shade and wear my havelock well-draped over my shoulders and the brim shading my face.

This June, we here near the center of the universe received .04 inches of rain, a little less than typical, which was accompanied by 5.12 inches of evaporation, for a moisture deficit of a tad more than five inches. Places back in the humid East have been experiencing five inch AN HOUR rainfall. In the nine months since October 1, we received 37.48 inches of moisture, resulting in a net balance of 16.79 inches after evaporation, which is slightly more than usual for that period. (Thanks, Randal Son, for these stats!) We're in full drought this summer, though, and my guilt grows with each day I haven't managed to install that stingy drip irrigation system. I tell myself that I can barely accomplish a single thing at a time, let alone take on parallel projects. I'll hover in the basement ironing long-sleeved shirts that wrinkle far too easily in such low humidity.

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