Cold Outside

Recently the weather has turned much warmer. The air heats up and gets thicker, the humidity building. The sky turns from blue to gray and the clouds rolls in, diffuse, spread and gather just beyond the horizon. Suddenly you wake up and the sky is just bursting with the promise of rain. Nothing moves outside, not even the birds. The grass lies thick, browning slightly (a foreshadowing of summer), until late evening when the drops fall heavily, dark splotches on sidewalks, windshields, and clothing. The rain is cool and it falls heavier now. As the sun sinks, the heat that was holding everything together takes a vacation. Everything falls apart and the sky bleeds. These early summer rainstorms are critical. They bring water to the ground where it is immediately taken back up by plants, still shooting and growing, still recovering from winter. They also bring relief. When you wake up, the air is thin, you can see through it for miles, or at least until a distant hill or stand of trees gets in the way. More than anything else, you can feel the difference in the temperature. The morning after is always cold. 

I rode my motorcycle to work this morning, regretting it about halfway through. I wasn't uncomfortable, but I had grown used to the warm weather, the sweat, the tight fitting heat of my helmet, my jacket, my gloves. Riding my motorcycle often takes on a womb like experience, dry heating bouncing crazily from the muffler off my right leg. I can feel the heat from the pavement through my boots. I can feel it in the tank pressed against my thighs. These cold mornings take me by surprise. For a moment, I forget who I am. There is some thrill in it. Cold weather riding comes with its own special type of adrenaline rush. 20 mph feels faster, and I need to open my visor at stop lights to ward off the condensation. 

I feel like an outsider. On days that begin with these types of mornings, I feel like all of the things that I thought I knew have shifted slightly. Like a burglar broke into my home and moved everything a couple inches. The world continues to turn, and I feel left alone, trying to understand the movements.

Here's a photograph I recently took of my brother blowing out the candles on his birthday cake: