It’s not clear how old I was when I started hating the
feeling of being hot. Every summer I
slept with the fan on a chair beside my bed blowing directly onto my body. After many complaints, Dad consented to get
an attic fan, but I wasn’t fooled when my parents talked about how it would
cool the house at night. Luckily my
neighbor Kim was usually generous in inviting Tammi, another friend with cheap
parents, and me over in the afternoons to watch the Cubs on WGN, switching off
to All My Children and General Hospital. Sometimes, though, Kim would get sick of us
and I would have to find other amusements in the scorching afternoons. The only thing I had the energy for was
reading. I devoured the books from my
mom and sister’s shelves: The Winds of War (longer than it needed to
be), Lolita (I thought she was a
little brat), Shogun (where I learned
about scurvy and how the Japanese were much cleaner than Europeans), The Day Kennedy Was Shot (I wanted to
see the pictures of the gore so well-described). It is pretty funny that Mom wouldn’t let me
read Judy Blume’s Are You There God, It’s
Me Margaret and Then Again Maybe I
Won’t because they were inappropriate.
Until we moved to Rhode Island, it never occurred to me that
we would have to spend a large amount on a normal house without a/c, when that
same amount would have bought a McMansion in Indiana, complete with bonus room,
3rd bay in the garage, and air conditioning. After three weeks of using my fan on the chair
method, we installed central air. Yes,
it cost a ton, but it has been worth every cent.
On Wednesday, the thermometer read 74 degrees at 6 a.m., and
I knew running would be impossible. So I
did what any privileged white woman would do--I went to a hot yoga class. I told the yoga studio owner about how heat
raises cortisol which is a problem for those of us experiencing perimenopause. I also suggested that, since there are a lot
of women my age who are probably feeling the same symptoms, maybe she could
offer classes that were not heated. She
looked me in the eye and said, “I hear you.” She then proceeded to crank up the
heat and teach a very active vinyasa class.
At the end of class, she talked about how we tell negative stories to
ourselves and we should not believe them.
I knew she was talking to me, and since I felt so great, I had to
laugh. I even drove home with the a/c
off and sunroof open to the blazing sun, singing very loudly to the Staples
Singers. I wondered if I wasn’t really
heat averse, but just made that up. It
has been a long tale of woe, this battle I have with heat. But what if it was just in my mind?
Later that afternoon, it was 98 degrees when I walked across
the concrete quad to teach the first class of the semester in Fogarty Hall. The classroom was stifling. There was just one lonely fan, very similar
to the kind I had placed beside my bed so long ago, to cool off about 300
square feet. Within five minutes, my
dress was sticking to me and my brain downshifted into just one lament:
must-get-out-of-here. My students and I abandoned this beautifully appointed
classroom for a cramped space with a makeshift whiteboard and no digital
technology, but with blessed air conditioning.
If there’s a lesson here, I am sure it is that my dependence
on air conditioning reflects a lack of character. It reflects my privilege as well—I get to
choose whether to be hot or not. There
are many New Englanders who see surviving the heat as a badge of honor with
tales of mold growing on tables due to the humidity and sweating the second
they step out of the shower. Still
others do not have a choice.
We are currently experiencing the hottest
summer on record in New England and there is no evidence that it is going
to get better. There is evidence that I am not alone in my cranky response to heat: hot weather increases
crime. I suggest that our
politicians and scientists find and fund environmentally responsible ways to
keep us cool. And I solemnly pledge that
if I ever win the lottery, I will pay for everyone to have air conditioning who
wants it.
