500 Days of Summer Sounds Like Hell
I am a coat weather kind of gal. Born in the fall, I feel like it’s the time of year I’m made for. I like rain, though the weeks without sun in Toronto can be a bit much. I own an excess of coats and boots. I love the bursts of colour that every tree turns into, the crunch underfoot, big scarves and crisp breezes. I have this specific set of mismatched finger gloves my sister made me years ago that I pull out every year. I love the day it is finally cold enough to wear them. This is my favourite time of year to walk. The only thing I don’t love about fall is the creeping darkness. While there are some comforts specific to the deep, dark cold, fireplaces, hot chocolate, the twinkle of holiday lights, it starts to weigh heavy. Toronto is notoriously gloomy, it can feel hard to properly wake up when you haven’t properly seen the sun in days or weeks. The desire to hibernate looms large over most tasks. While life doesn’t stop, it certainly slows. It takes deliberate time and energy to get stuff done, to socialize, to remember to leave the house for more than taking out the compost. The winter solstice is dark and long, but it simultaneously signals spring’s slow creep in.
Spring, the onset of light, feels like a weight being lifted. The days become so long that I lose track of time, reading, putzing, walking. The crocuses come first, swiftly followed by tulips, which exist in astonishing variety here. I didn’t like tulips much until I saw spring in Toronto. Next come the irises, the lavender and peonies. This is my second favourite time of year for walks. I seem to be built for liminal seasons, the flow and the change, the moving from one to another. I love the days getting longer in the spring, but one thing I don’t love about the spring is the incoming heat. Long days and sunshine bring me energy, and the heat and humidity drag me back down. I’ve never been built for heat, there’s something about it I just find hard to shake. It’s suppressive, it feels unrelenting. Also my cat hates it. The cold can be dressed for, but at a certain point in the heat, I am condemned to having skin as an important part of staying alive. The summer becomes a strange battle; a desire to be busy, to be out, to be in the sun, and being dragged back down into lethargy as the heat sinks into my body. The humidity of Toronto also gives the lethargy the upper hand, sticking to me, weighing me down in a way that is hard to explain. I usually acclimate, at least a bit, by mid summer, but as I sit here in the beginning of a Toronto heat wave, I feel the languor. There are things I love about summer; long days, cold beers, walks in the park and sleeping with open windows. I want to be energetic, I want to enjoy stereotypical beach days, I want to get tanned. But I’m simply not built for it (and I have too many tattoos to responsibly get a tan anyway). The stagnancy bothers me. It drags on, it sticks, it seeps in. I get sleepy, I move slowly a lot of the time. I dislike being sweaty and sticky and often think about cutting off all my hair in the heat. I know it won’t last forever, I know as we get deeper into the heat, I’ll adapt, it’ll ease, but for now, I’m foggy. I’m sitting with it, breathing in thick, humid breaths. I feel the changes happening, or maybe already happened. A stunted appetite, frequently interrupted sleep, a low riding irritation that can be hard to shake. Overheated and broiling, I find it hard to love as much as a crisp day, complimented by the sweet comfort of wool and leather. All of this to say, I hope your equivalent of the cool breeze finds you. I hope relief, material, emotional and physical, graces you.
Forgive me for two short weeks in a row, it always takes me some time to sort out how foggy my brain gets in the humidity. Waterlogged, almost. I know in a few weeks, it will be more bearable, but for tonight, I will be sleeping with a cold towel across my face. I am still thinking of as many things as ever, the pace at which I make sense of them is just a bit slower right now. As ever, thank you for being here, in whatever weather you’re having and always feel free to share if there’s someone else you think might enjoy the noise.
