The way I feel on a summer night... I could live forever.
DC in the summer is hot. It is humid. It is downright sticky. Everywhere you go, everyone is dripping sweat unrelentingly. You get used to having your clothing stick to you or your hair simultaneously frizzy and without body. And as someone whose first house here did not have air conditioning, let me be the first to proclaim what a gift it is to have such thermal control during the DC summer. You quickly learn where the air vents are at Metro stations so that you can hog the little bit of cool air being blown into a space that feels like the equivalent of wearing a wetsuit in a sauna. Cockroaches scuttle about the sidewalks when the sun goes down, and mosquitoes feast on your legs as though you're a delicacy. Men get sweat stains down backs of their dress shirts. It gets to the point where putting on lotion is almost torture since it clogs the pours and causes even more perspiration, if that's possible. People groan and complain and stay in the air conditioned office building for lunch, but really, who blames them? To step outside is to look a mess for the remainder of the day.
But you know what, I love it. I don't mind looking disheveled and damp because everyone else looks that way too. The swampy weather means that plants grow, almost jungle like in their green-ness, easily and beautifully. And at night, oh my dear sweet DC summer night, the air stays muggy and warm but my need for sleep grows shorter. I could stay awake forever. The smells, the sounds, the feeling-- it brings back good memories of my previous summer in DC and urges me to continually make more. The air makes me crave a glass of wine on my back patio (or a dance, as was once the case). It makes me crave a walk, stomping on the occasional cockroach (sorry, karma). It makes me crave outdoor movies, good friends, good music, and of course good ice cream. The summer nights in DC bring back the feelings from the summer past and its wishes that never were, but it makes me feel so alive with possibilities of what could be.
So, welcome back to DC, summer nights. I've missed you.
"Hold me close and hold me fast,
the magic spell you cast,
this is la vie en rose"
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