a most pleasant drone

Our house sounds like a wind tunnel, on this second day of summer.

I remember a friend using that phrase, "wind tunnel", to describe their house, post-flooding, as the insurance company set up serious airflow control to dry out the rooms.  She didn't sound particularly affectionate when she said it.

For me, though, the whir of fans is a pleasant noise, somnolent and nostalgic.

I remember sleeping in my grandma's ancient guest bed, the one with the headboard that went on forever, with a reading lamp centered conveniently above my head.  It was summer, hot, the curtains drifting lazily in and out in the recalcitrant breeze.  But I, I had a breeze:  a weighty box fan set on a kitchen chair mere feet from my restless body, blowing ceaselessly across me and the off-white candlewick bedspread.

That night epitomizes my grandma for me.  I got a nosebleed, I think, and went down the dark stairs to find her.  She was still awake, in her nightclothes.  She gave me tissues, rubbed my back, and heated milk and honey on the stove.  I drank love from that mug, hot and sweet.  And then I went back up the stairs to my fan and slept like a baby.

Fans make me think, too, of my father:  sometimes minister, sometimes grammar police, sometimes physics teacher to his children.  Always a safe place - even the kittens knew, somehow.  He taught me all I needed to know about airflow:  on a hot night, set a box fan in an open window, blowing out.  It blew my childish mind, to think of "wasting" that air, blowing it out into the night when I wanted it blowing on me!  But look! go to a window on the other side of the house, and feel! the air is coming in there, cool and fresh!  Turn the fan off, and the breeze magically stops.  On, and it's back!

I remember a summer spent volunteering in northeast Georgia between college years.  We'd take cold showers just before retiring to bed, and then lie in our loft beds, trying to feel benefit from a small oscillating fan hung from the ceiling, the damp of the shower turning into the damp of fresh sweat.

And nights now, many years later, too hot to sleep despite sprawling in minimal nightwear under the ceiling fan:  I should be miserable (and sometimes am) but instead feel the excitement of a slumber party, remembering the day in muted voices, laughing over something the children said or did, all to the reassuring soundtrack of the box fan in the window.

: : :

If the heat stays too long, we'll probably abandon the fans in favor of window units.  But, curmudgeons that we are, we like to hold out as long as we can.  Here, we don't mind a little whirring.  We like our fans.

gasping for breath

It's hot today.  Ninety degrees even, in the shade.  I haven't been in the sun since before lunch, and I have no intention of going there just to find out how hot it is.

The cats are melting on the porch.  Sensible, as always, cats.  Practical.  No guilt for not getting work done; they just nap when napping is clearly the most logical thing to do.

Unlike me.  I saw the forecast - two blistering hot days after a week of cool - and I decided I'd take two days off.  Just give myself permission to lay low until more humane temperatures returned.  No unnecessary cooking or baking or cleaning, just read and hang out and watch life go by.

The problem is, I feel guilty actually doing it.

I do "pretend" work instead - checking email and making lists and phone calls, redesigning homeschool log sheets and tidying up and "just sweeping the porch a little."

Ugh.  I can't rest.  Have I forgotten how?

Or, am I waiting for divine permission, somehow?








"Be still, and know that I am God."  (Psalm 46:10)

{This should be a longer post - resolved, somehow, with a tidy answer and a shout of victory at the end.  But I have neither answers nor victory, yet.  Just hope.  Patience.  That will have to do, for a start.}

heat

Wow, is it hot. So hot, the clean bedding I hung out in the sunshine to dry came in smelling faintly of sweat. Even the air must perspire!

In this old farmhouse, we have two window units, upstairs, to make sleeping bearable. We try to draw the cool downstairs using fans. Even so, it's 85 degrees. The slightest movement makes this mama sweat. I grow cranky, quickly.

Going outside, though, makes inside feel refrigerated. It's a temporary consolation; the feeling fades in minutes.

To make myself more grateful, I put our thermometer outside. The temperature rose five degrees in five minutes; the humidity increased five percent.

It's hot. And my Farmer works away tonight, filling in for someone's holiday. I pity him. (I pity me, alone).  How can he breathe? The air's so thick.

And yet, he goes on, cheerful. I must pretend, at least, to follow his example.