It’s hot. Is it hot? It’s hot in here. It’s hot out there. It’s so hot. Squirrels are dying. Baby hummingbirds are abandoned. The crows are clearly pissed. For three days in a row Portland saw temperatures in triple digits—three record breaking days in a row. The fourth day promised to be a chilly 97 degrees. Finally, some relief! In fact, somewhat miraculously, it did cool down over that third evening, over two hours about 15 degrees. 8:30 on Monday evening, from 103 or so to 88 in the shade. That was insane. We had no central air, but instead, there are window units in the bedrooms that couldn’t keep up, a basement that is cool until one gets used to it and realizes that, relatively, it’s not really all that cool, and we have the great privilege of owning a tiny RV with kick ass AC—so we were living in that thing with the dogs for the duration of the heatwave.
This school year has been a bit of a hellscape sandwich. On top of everything was the Covid 19 pandemic, but September began with massive wildfires that shut everything down and made breathing dangerous, February brought us a freak ice storm and the loss of power for six to ten days, and summer break begins with a record setting heatwave. One of the mildest climes in the continental United States finds itself with Baghdad temperatures.
Now, almost midway through July, things have cooled down. But we haven’t seen any rain in a while, and our “cool” days have all been in the mid 80’s, a couple of 90-degree reprises. This, we can live with. But I understand our neighbors to the south are not fairing as well. Death Valley, California, while normally a hot place, reached temperatures a few days ago of 130 degrees. All year, with the weather and the pandemic, we have, it seems, been covered by clouds of impending doom.
And yet—there is good news. In Oregon, having reached the 60% fully vaccinated threshold, we are, it seems, completely back in business, have reopened “the economy,” have dropped altogether the mask mandate. It’s been a bit of a shock to be out in public. Can I trust these people? What is that whole bit under the eyes, there? Noses? Mouths? I think I remember those! Should I keep my distance? Within a day, it seems, the public has gone from fully masked to no masks. I still have these panics when I’m driving some place—oh my god—did I forget my mask? Should I go back? I still find myself carrying one around with me, just in case. It amazes me how we have become so accustomed to mask-wearing, a thing that was SO strange in the beginning, now, we feel kind of naked without them—or still super anxious that people around us are not wearing theirs, even though we’re not wearing one either. Let us keep our fingers crossed, however, that this is a trend that continues, that we are really, if not completely, almost out of the woods.
And rock and roll is back in town. Live music is a thing again. Last weekend I played my first two drumming gigs in public in fourteen or fifteen months. It was glorious. Seeing friends again, hugging people, shaking hands (tentatively, still), and having face-to-face close proximity conversations: we need this. I need it. In fact, I’m realizing how much I need it, surprisingly so. I think I had kind of convinced myself that the introvert in me had become accustomed to my relative isolation and had learned to like it. And now? Not so much. It feels good to BE with people again. Is this the last of the Plague Journals? Somehow, I doubt it—but I think I might be close to wrapping up this series once and for all. I’m totally okay with that.
michael jarmer 