FIB: Heat
In Rome, during the summer of 2003, the heat came like an occupation. Perhaps it was all fine and good that my sleep schedule was flipped on its head, I started writing, the heat blaring. Our apartment was in a building smacked down in the breathless center of a large block near Termini Station, without air, only sun and heat. We took a shower upon waking, sometimes upon moving and we were dry the minute the water stopped running. I always swear by that summer, that it was the hottest summer I’ve ever lived.
I find it funny that any summer, when it comes, is the hottest summer ever lived. Once the sweat starts trickling and the air becomes stifling, our sensitive and forgetful human bodies take to suffering. But I like the heat much better than the cold. That’s what I say now, having lived through more freezing colds than oppressive heats. I like the slowness of heat, the seamless contact of skin with air, I like the taste of beer in heat, the feel of water in heat, I like the evenings of a long hot day when the breeze stirs relief.
Bracciano in summer is good; nothing like the sun-penetrated rocks of Rome. The breeze comes over the lake and those medievalers knew what they were doing when they fashioned this apartment for the Mediterranean climate. It could be worse: San Francisco in the summer worse. When the fog rolls in, the temperture drops and one sweater is not enough. I don’t like San Francisco in the summer. I like heat.
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