Summer is stifling, sweating, suffering, swimming, surviving. It is also monsoon season which is the only break in the monotony of searing hot days. For most of the country this is a time to luxuriate in the outdoors. Here in the desert, life is lived in an artificial environment indoors. Air conditioning is not good for the immune system yet I can’t live here without it. I am cut off from the sounds of nature and only see it through windows. This is not a time of relaxation. It is a time of survival.
When a high ridge of pressure moves in and the heat seeps through the triple-pane windows, it feels like a force in the universe is trying to put an end to my existence. I suffer when out in the heat. One hour outdoors in 95+ degrees and my nerve endings register pain. For one week after I ache all over and I can’t connect two thoughts. My schedule is upended as I race to get all errands done by 10 a.m. as the local weather anchor advises. Once home there is a small window of time to get things done before exhaustion sets in as my system prioritizes sending energy to cool my core.
Summers here are lived like winters in the rest of the country. Daily tasks require a strategy to be home before the extreme heat hits along with the maximum UV index, meaning your skin will burn within 15 minutes. The stinging sensation is palpable even when in a car with tinted windows. Energy bars are liquified by the time I cross the parking lot. Forget chocolate or ice cream.
What is left of my garden gets watered at odd hours, ideally when the sun is not out. Because the plumbing runs through the attic, water out of the cold tap is hot most of the day and well into the night. Laundry on cold has to be done very early in the day or with ice cubes in the washing machine.
It used to cool off in the evenings, giving the body a break overnight. Not so now. The resulting heat island effect from greedy development means that heat is trapped in all concrete and paved-over surfaces, radiating back into the atmosphere at night. There used to be a few tough weeks. Now it is a few tough months. Five months is a lot to ask of my air conditioner, electric bill, patience, and immune system.
There are only two good things about summers in the desert: swimming and monsoon storms. The 4th of July usually involves competing fireworks: patriotic celebrations and lightning inside storm clouds. I can see the progression of a storm as thunder clouds build up during the day. The smell of rain in the distance is tantalizing, though storms often fizzle out at the city outskirts. I love a good thunder and lightning show, even if I yelp after a solid strike and boom of thunder. Haboobs, or dust storms, are more sinister. They are a blizzard of dust and extremely dangerous when encountered on a road trip.
Every season has a gift, but all I can say for this one is eventually it will be fall.