Summer Love

The entire time I lived in California, I missed thunderstorms. I'm thinking about it this morning because a doozy of a storm traveled through DC last night. Oh the sizzling blue purple of lightning, the cracks, booms and long drum rolls of thunder, the pounding rain - love, love, love.

Weather is, in my opinion, the emotional body of the earth. Just as with emotion, everything is going on all at once. It was stormy here, but elsewhere on this complicated planet it was dry, cold, peaceful, windy and stormy in other ways. Weather is crazy. Weather makes sense to me. Hmmm.

Weather is my boyfriend. We get along sometimes, sometimes we fight. We fought all winter long which might be why, even though it has been rather hot already this summer in DC, I have not been in a mood to complain. I think I'm like this to some extent every summer. I enjoy a sweaty trudge through the waves of humidity and heat. Those walks are a great test of fortitude. I'm not an idiot, by the way - I always have a bottle of water and when I get overheated, I seek shelter, drink iced tea, cool down for awhile. After a sweaty walk, I enter the calm and cool of the chateau, sip a cool glass of water, take a shower, and next: a cold beer. Ahhh. Nothing in this world is as good as the shower and cold beer after a walk in summer heat. Nothing. Believe me.

The honeymoon ends in July, usually. I begin to dread the heat. I get out early, then spend the rest of the day binge watching some stupid tv, railing against the heat from my air conditioned space, longing for fall. I wonder how long my love affair with summer will last this year? I can't imagine I'll still be singing its praises in August, but who knows? Last winter was cold. I'm still getting over it.

I'm going to New York tomorrow, just for the day. I'll be meeting an old blog friend, then a bit later will connect with an old friend from my San Francisco days. I'm going to walk the High Line (the weather is supposed to be great tomorrow). Then I'm going to the Morgan Library to see a show featuring the symbolism of trees in romantic paintings, after which we'll walk the labyrinth at Marble Collegiate church. Then we will seek refreshment, after which I'll get back on the train, sleep in my own bed tomorrow night.

A dip into NYC is always enough for me. I am easily overwhelmed.

It'll be good to get out of the DC bubble for a little while in spite of how happy I am with the city and the season. A day in New York is always vivifying, like a thunderstorm. I will take pictures.

Happy Thursday. Shalom.