The Air is Hot

The air in Alberta is dry. The heat at noon on a summer's day is like an invitation to play. We go outside because it is too hot to work anymore. We seek any breeze that we can create, with our bikes, on our trampolines, or splashing in the cool water that sprays on the decks at the park. By dinner time, that heat feels like a weight almost to heavy to carry. Dinners are cooked on the grill to avoid the heat of the house. Dinner is eaten in the basements, where it is cool, or outside where there is the hope that a breeze might provide us some relief. After dinner, the heat divides us, makes us seek the solace of a cooler corner. Many Alberta nights we go to bed, too exhausted from the heat to remember to reconnect with one another. Just dropping on to our beds, and if we share them with another, careful not to touch. The heat hangs in the air, almost choking us, weighing down on us so that even as we try to sleep it presses down on us. But every few days, the sky turns grey, and the thunder breaks up the brittle blanket of thick hot air. A cool wind blows through...reprieve. So that even as we prepare for sleep, with the sound of rain beating against the walls and the windows, it is cool enough for us to remember to reconnect. The sound of the thunder, the sound of the rain, the sound of water spraying up from the streets as cars rush past our house, they become the chorus. They are background music to the whispers and the quiet laughter of summer time moments where it is good to remember why we reach out, why we reconnect. As I sit here listening to the rain, and feeling the air blow over me, my head is filled with wonder at simple moments...and longing...and gratitude...and now I shall seek rest...