This is the one.

It’s been hot. Crazy hot for the end of May, 20 degrees above normal, temperatures hovering near the three-digit mark that we’re usually not wringing our hands about until at least July. It’s been hot and humid, all the marks of a Baltimore summer, the sky a washed-out no-color blue, clouds wandering by barely distinguishable from the background. 

As is always the case in summer, my office is cold. If I dress to be comfortable outside, I have to wear a sweater indoors, and there are days I wish for fuzzy slippers, too. Then there are the days when it’s not really possible to dress to be comfortable outside. 

When I was younger, I used to rail against the heat. I preferred cold, I would tell anyone who would listen, because you could always add another layer. Another sweater, another pair of socks, a hat, another blanket. In the summer, I would note with great wit, you could only get so naked. And it’s true, there are days I feel like going home to my apartment, stripping down, and lying in the middle of the floor not moving, with a glass of ice water close to hand. There are days where that feels like the only tenable solution. 

I’m not sure when it happened. A few years back I lost a great deal of weight, which probably has something to do with it. Maybe it’s also aging. Maybe it’s just my perception. Maybe part of it is even that terrible, never-ending snowbound winter of ’09-’10, one I’m sure no one who lived through it will ever forget. As beautiful as it was, and all that snow was very beautiful indeed, it was also cold in a way that it seemed would never stop. 

In the middle of that winter, when I went for a long walk out from my apartment, taking the familiar paths over to the footbridge over Route 29 and across to Lake Kittamaqundi, I had strange visions. At one point I looked down and realized I was in snow nearly up to the tops of my thighs, and I closed my eyes and laughed.

With my eyes still shut against the blowing snow and howling wind, I could think of nothing but the hottest, dustiest summer day imaginable. I could see my sandal-clad feet walking across dried out grass, ground so dry it was cracked and flaking, kicking the dust around my ankles and sticking to the sweat on my legs. I thought about how good it would be to walk in that heat, on that dry ground, with the sun beating down on my shoulders. 

I waited and waited. Eventually, that day came. Then this past winter, a much milder affair than the winter before, I still had those thoughts. Dry, dusty walks. Heavy, oppressive air. Violent thunderstorms sweeping in from the west, the skies opening but the dry ground more than ready to take it all in. Even though this past winter wasn’t particularly snowy, it was quite cold, and it seemed to last a long time.

Spring took its fine time, and it lasted a long time, chilly rains lasting well into April, saturating everything and making even the newest leaves on the trees look a bit tired and worn-down already. 

So today was it. The one I’ve been waiting for. I left my office at lunchtime, still wearing the sweater I needed to be comfortable inside. When I opened the door and walked out into a solid wall of heat, felt the wind that brought absolutely no cooling with it, I breathed a sigh of relief as I felt my toes begin to thaw in their sandals. Maybe by July the novelty will have worn off. Maybe by then I’ll turn the tables, think of snow and hot cider and snuggling under blankets. But for right now, I say, I’ll take the heat and be thankful for it.