Hot

Hallelujah! I am in Maine where it’s hot but nothing like it was in Philadelphia. Where the heat was like an evil being, rising up from the sidewalk, assaulting eyes and nose and skin, making any movement a fight you couldn’t win.

I’ve already been in the lake two times since the late afternoon when I got here, whipping off my clothes the minute I arrived even before I unpacked and then at sunset to soap up and get ready for my traditional glass of wine on the dock. Steve would be so proud. “It’s like toast,” he’d say, urging me to get in the lake with him. I always resisted, fearing the shock of the cold water, preferring my nice hot shower at the end of the day.

Once several years ago during another hot and steamy stretch of summer (maybe that was the year we decided to put ceiling fans in every bedroom) we were going to Bob and Jane’s for dinner. Instead of walking through the woods as we usually did we jumped in the water as the sun was fading. Steve walked and I swam. We got out at their dock, walked up to the house with no clothes on and then sat buck naked at the table dripping wet and wrapped in towels. It was a great evening, full of laughs like so many. Who knows how we got home at the end of the night.