I love summer.

I even love the “Dog Days of Summer”. You know – those hot, sticky, muggy, days that hit Maryland around July. Don’t hate me.  I just love them. I love drinking gallons of iced tea, sitting under  the ceiling fan, going barefoot, pulling my hair up in a not-so-neat pile to get it off my neck, eating cucumber salad for breakfast, lunch and dinner. I love going outside at  10 o’clock at night and being
hit with a blast of hot air. I love all of it. And I don’t know why. Being a red head, I was never one of those girls who could “lay out” as a summer activity. You know – spread your towel out in the back yard or on the  concrete beside the swimming pool, slather on the baby oil, put on the shades and bake your way to beautiful, golden skin. Oh, not that I didn’t try.  I would go through all the steps – only to end up with a  hideous looking sunburn that left me in so much pain and misery that I wanted to die (that’s the teen drama speaking). And when the pain subsided I was left with peeling skin and freckles – the bane of my life. I remember once reading in a beauty magazine that you could bleach them out with lemon juice. Not true.  Anyway, as a kid and teenager, summer was fraught with peril and danger and I never considered it my friend.

But somewhere along the way, that changed. Now I sit in the shade and read my book and listen to the insects and the birds and it feeds my soul. I don’t like air conditioning. I almost refuse to eat at a restaurant in the summer that doesn’t have outdoor seating because I hate to bundle up in a sweater and  hurry through my meal because I’m freezing. I like the heat. (In the interest of full disclosure, we do cool the house down at night to sleep. But the first thing I do in the morning is warm it up.)

This week has been unusually hot. And though the evenings are the way I like them, hot and humid, the day after day of near 100 degree temps with high humidity can wear a little thin – even for me.  And they take me back to the summer of 1976.

It was August and we lived in Kansas in an apartment that was on the second and third floor of an old house. I was nine months pregnant and had a four year old and two year old. Our apartment had no air conditioning. None. I stripped the kids down to their underwear, put on a tent that I called a sundress, and wondered to myself if I had really died and gone to hell because surely this is what hell must feel like. Did I mention I was nine months pregnant?  And we had no air conditioning?  We did find an ancient window unit in the basement that the last tenant had discarded and we (and by we I mean Paul) hauled it upstairs and installed it in the living room window. We plugged it in, prayed, held our breath, and hit the on switch. The sound that came from that machine sounded like a tribe of banshees each using a jack -hammer to break up concrete. The kids – who had been playing out in the yard (in their underwear)- came running up the stairs “Daddy, Daddy, make it stop!” We only knew that’s what they were saying by the look of terror in their eyes and reading their lips – we certainly couldn’t hear them over the racket. The best relief to be found was to stand in front of the open refrigerator. Which I did. Often. Everyday the weatherman talked about the record breaking heat and I prayed that relief would come soon. Paul went to work every day, drove by the bank with the thermometer that confirmed what he already knew – he would return home that evening to a bowl of cereal; sweaty, cranky kids; and a wife who had seen better days. But the baby came in the middle of August (we named her Faith, maybe because of the faith it took to believe we would both survive those days), finally the heat broke, and life went on. I’m sure it was sometime after the memories of that summer had faded a little (a lot) that my love affair with summer began.

I have been reminded of that summer because now, in the heat of these days and nights, as I wait for the birth of my granddaughter who is due the first of August. I understand how miserable the wait is for my daughter Joy and how if feels like it will never end. But it does.

As for me, I will pour myself another glass of tea or buy a 5 cent glass of lemonade from a budding young entrepreneur,  turn the ceiling fan on high (okay – and maybe I’ll turn on the air conditioning just a little) and soak up these dog days of summer.