HIGHLIGHTED LIFE // THE TUMBLELOG OF JAMES NORD

Things To Do In A Southern Sun

In the South the heat feels different. In New York, the heat is unpleasant but it rarely feels like it is part of you. In the south, the heat enters your body and takes up residence. You wear it as a jacket. When you walk into a cool store or government building you can feel it come off. First the fingers stop burning, then your arms, slowly you feel the sweat starting to dry off your back. There are, however, ways to enjoy the heat.

In the early morning, I would slink out to our pool. We have 6 treated cotton covered lounge chairs set up in a row. By 9AM they have been baking in the sun for a few hours and are hot to the touch. I would lay down slowly on the first chair, often having to arch my bare back so it would not burn. Slowly the heat from the chair diffused into my skin and I lay cat like napping in the sun. When I had transferred all the heat out of the first chair I would move down the line until I had taken the life out of all of them.

Some mornings when I walk out of my apartment on Rivington St, I am secretly hoping there will be a line of lounge chairs waiting for me, begging me to take the heat they have been storing all morning.