Summer 23
When I look back at this summer, I wonder what I will remember. Summers always hold an intense voyeuristic aspect for me as schools in New York City don’t officially begin summer break until well into the middle of the rest of America’s summers. As the waning days of June slip listlessly by, I dream of beaches, road trips, dripping ice cream cones, and late evening dinners enjoyed in the glorious outdoors.
There’s always an intense feeling of competitiveness once my actual summer starts, not because I want to be boarding plane to the Maldives like I’ve seen my Instagram idols do, but because with this large swath of unstructured time, I feel compelled to make the most of every single second — which is why I always feel a pang of guilt when I sleep in those first few days because my body is making up for lost winks. From the haze of my morning slumber, I start peeping at enterprising friends’ videos who made the most of their time by jumping on a cruise as soon as the school bell rang.
But this summer was different.
The halcyon images of summer were interspersed with torrential rains. Rivers of hail flowing through classic Italian alleyways. Images of heat maps where I couldn’t quite grasp which part was the ocean and which part was land. Numbers I’d never heard of associated with degrees Celsius started to appear in small stories that would pop up by concerned citizen scientists, who were quickly trolled by naysayers.
70ºC in Iran cannot be explained away though. Double it and add 30. I’d been doing that all summer to the record temperatures I was seeing from Europe, trying to fathom how one could survive in such temperatures in places where they disdained the American dependency on air conditioning. Here in our own backyard, I listened to the Phoenix Heat Officer explain away heat mitigation as something akin to what a cold city like Minneapolis would do with their extreme winters. You just have to make adjustments for the weather.
I read back and forth arguments where people debated weather versus climate. I read my first climate change book. I consoled myself in the fact that we didn’t have any children. I lamented what life would be like for my nephews and cousin’s babies. I tried to resolve what it might mean to live like this. I looked at charts showing that July 2023 had been the hottest month recorded in history. I listened to people explain away how temperature records only started in the ‘40s.
And then the charts began to change. A tumultuous line graph was trending upwards. The next COVID surge. The research coming out about multiple COVID infections. The op-eds from people who suffered from Long COVID. Then, the sore throat I woke up with turned into two lines on a COVID test I’d dusted off from the linen closet. I guess the “summer flu” was not a real thing. I kicked myself and tried to think back to when I made the stupid decision not to mask indoors.
I quarantined. The cats looked at me with such confusion when I slinked by them on the way to the bathroom. They couldn’t fathom why I wasn’t giving them generous belly rubs. They watched me close the door on their pleading eyes. My husband faithfully brought me delicious meals communicated to me in door knocks. We talked through the window and rued a quieter life.
Though I started to grow weary of quarantining, I secretly welcomed its momentary retreat. It was the existential equivalent of staying in bed all day, though there were some days when I literally did that, too. But as the line grew fainter and fainter on my rapid tests, I knew I’d need to emerge. I thought about all the folks that didn’t have this luxury. Five days at home, fully paid, fully pampered.
The day the door flew open, my cats rejoiced. My excitement was a little more muted but still triumphant. But, Summer 23, I have returned. For a moment, I imagined jumping on a ferry to go to the beach, but then I read the lastest update:
I think I’ll skip the beach today.
