Summer
Despite my longtime disdain for hot weather, I'm finding that I actually enjoy the stifling heat of New York summer. Here are some reasons why:
1. Sweat. It feels good and natural to sweat. I like being conscious of replacing my body's minerals - it feels urgent and important.
2. More sweat. Everybody is sweating. Even the uber-manicured beautiful people of Manhattan are sweating, filling me with a twin surge of compassion and smugness.
3. Hot pavement. I love the smell of hot pavement. It must hearken back to my childhood in the neighborhood of Cleveland that I, in the spirit of Old New York, refer to as NoHopA (North of Hopkins Airport).
4. Urban flowers. In the same vein, I loveweeds urban flowers. Periwinkles, Queen Anne's lace, red clover sticking out of cracks in the sidewalk and twining around rusty chain link fences. Not exactly City Beautiful, but beautiful to me.
5. Weirdness. There's an endless variety of oddities you seem to see only in the summer: pigeons copulating, subway rats frolicking above ground, an old woman picking mulberries from a giant tree growing next to the freeway, a vinyl LP smashed into a million pieces all over the sidewalk.
6. No expectations. You know you won't be able to do as much when you get home because it's so hot, and can look forward to a long evening of being wrapped in a beach towel that's been in the freezer all day. I love justified laziness.
And finally....
7. Cicada and friends. I'm lucky to live by trees and grass, a rarity in New York. Trees and grass mean those lovely insect sounds at dusk, continuing long after the darkness settles in. It reminds me of sitting out on the porch in Ohio with friends, listening to Jim Blum.
Luckily there's Folk Alley.
1. Sweat. It feels good and natural to sweat. I like being conscious of replacing my body's minerals - it feels urgent and important.
2. More sweat. Everybody is sweating. Even the uber-manicured beautiful people of Manhattan are sweating, filling me with a twin surge of compassion and smugness.
3. Hot pavement. I love the smell of hot pavement. It must hearken back to my childhood in the neighborhood of Cleveland that I, in the spirit of Old New York, refer to as NoHopA (North of Hopkins Airport).
4. Urban flowers. In the same vein, I love
5. Weirdness. There's an endless variety of oddities you seem to see only in the summer: pigeons copulating, subway rats frolicking above ground, an old woman picking mulberries from a giant tree growing next to the freeway, a vinyl LP smashed into a million pieces all over the sidewalk.
6. No expectations. You know you won't be able to do as much when you get home because it's so hot, and can look forward to a long evening of being wrapped in a beach towel that's been in the freezer all day. I love justified laziness.
And finally....
7. Cicada and friends. I'm lucky to live by trees and grass, a rarity in New York. Trees and grass mean those lovely insect sounds at dusk, continuing long after the darkness settles in. It reminds me of sitting out on the porch in Ohio with friends, listening to Jim Blum.
Luckily there's Folk Alley.
posted by Christine Borne at 7:06 PM
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