The world is freaking me out today. The simmering triple digit heat has left Sacramento feeling edgy, jagged and hostile. It’s May and this is way too early for July weather. It’s best to ease into summer, one digit at a time, instead it feels like an intersection collision.
Triple digits have become a trigger. I relate it always to Shadow and that dreadful summer where we laid together on the wood floor beneath the whining window AC. Two weeks of heat that would not relent below 100 and more often rose to 114 degrees. The living room became small, suffocating. I draped sheets over the stairwell and wet towels over Shadow. He was in so much pain by then. Time has never moved so slowly.
Now, when the sky feels like it’s on fire, those days come back in a viscious flood. Life was measured in teaspoons then. They were the worst–and the most important–days of our lives. And then Shadow’s life was over before he could feel the coolness again. I wanted to go with him, but I had to stay behind.
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So, this weekend has been all about haulting encrouching demons, staying present, remembering that it is just heat, just weather and it will pass. It’s difficult. I don’t want to live here anymore. I hate summer.
