I am not from here. I moved to this area about six months ago. Before here, I spent nine years living in the MidAtlantic, growing accustomed to the tidy, evenly distributed seasons, each one claiming its own three-month quota. And before the MidAtlantic, I spent twenty- five years migrating between the Midwest and Florida.
I’ve known a variety of weather as well as some climate extremes. I’ve driven in hurricane weather, white-knuckled and praying, as water whipped up from the river below threatened to wash out the bridge beneath me. I’ve huddled in a basement listening to a tornado whine as it jumped over our house taking the neighbor’s barn roof with it. In 2012, the windows of my seventh floor apartment rattled violently when a derecho thunderstorm flew through D.C. at 85 miles per hour. I had seen all kinds of spidery lightning in Tampa, but I’d never seen bands of vertical lightning. The elements put on quite the show that night.
I’ve witnessed the spectacles, so I’ve learned to respect Mother Nature, especially on her inclement days. Now I don’t drive unless the roads are dry and skies are clear. I prefer regions that cancel everything, when just an inch of snow falls, to places that shovel and salt their way into another must-be-productive day. I remind friends that we are animals, spouting proclamations and rhetorical questions like: “We don’t see the other creatures out battling storms, do we? No. They head to their caves and nests until the whole mess is over.” My friends laugh, pat my head, and remind me of things like technological advancements and evolution.
Maybe they’re right. Maybe we are advanced. Or maybe all the heightened weather talk has desensitized us, so we are not fazed by icy highways or foggy back roads. Lately, we seem to hyperbolize and even glamorize the weather. When I was young, I don’t think our snowstorms were alphabetically named, and I don’t recall any kind of weather being referred to as an “event” of apocalyptic status. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe I have weather amnesia. I don’t remember.
I’ve known dramatic weather, but I prefer to recognize other aspects of our atmosphere, which despite their consistency, seem to surprise and annoy us. These predictable shifts are significant in terms of how much we talk about them and how they can physically affect us. I am referring to moisture in the air. It happens every summer in many parts of the country, and it is Florida almost all year.
Being Midwest born, I am supposed to crave seasonal changes, be tolerant of gray skies, feel irritated in temperatures above 75 degrees, and especially hate humidity. None of these are true for me, and I can place the moment when I knew that a subtropical climate was my favorite.
It was early September 1983. I had just stepped out the door of our new home in Florida to go to school, and I felt it. Gone was the crisp, cool Wisconsin morning. Here was muggy, a muggy so muggy I had to breathe differently. I knew I was supposed to hate it, and I’m sure I complained to my parents like a typical, uprooted teenager that it ‘just didn’t feel like fall,’ but there was something else, and I haven’t shared this with anyone until now… I was excited.
The mugginess felt mysterious, thrilling, primordial. It was time travel. I felt like Holly Marshall from “Land of the Lost.” I was ready to meet some Sleestaks. I did miss my Wisconsin woods. Thanks to our generous neighbors, my brothers and I had hundreds of acres to run around in, so yes, I was MidWest homesick, but my parents were smart. They knew the best way to get us to appreciate our new home was to take us into the swamps for a paddleboat ride. I didn’t see Sleestaks on that excursion, but I saw my first alligators in the Hillsborough River, and this confirmed it. Florida was outside of time. Everything about the swamps was enchanting, green, alive, and growing. Even in the shade it was humid, and I loved it. I loved how it felt to swim through the air, how loose it made my joints, and how easy it was to sweat.
Humidity isn’t usually listed as a top favorite weather condition. Unlike me, most people hate to sweat unless they are trying to do so. Humidity may cause personal discomfort, but it is necessary for the overall good of the planet. Humidity, or water vapor, “is a key agent in both weather and climate, and it is an important atmospheric greenhouse gas. Without water vapour we would be 31 °C colder on Earth” (npl.co.uk). We need humidity for balance. “Due to its properties, water, as humidity in the air, stabilizes our climate and prevents large extremes of temperature” (aweimagazine.com). We need it. It’s important.
Still, when it’s humid, people complain. People also complain when it’s rained too much, snowed too often, or been too cold or too hot for too long. We are all a bit like Goldilocks. We want to have that third, perfect bowl of porridge, all the time, but there is no such thing as perfect soup or perfect weather. Perhaps complaining gives us a sense of camaraderie. Not being able to control the weather may make us feel helpless, but complaining about it puts us on a more even playing field.
Humidity is a leveler. It forces everyone to move slower. It makes us feel lazy, like doing nothing but allowing the air to sway us into a nap. Being unproductive is not valued in our culture, and people who must move slower are regarded with pity. I should know. I am 48, and I walk with a cane due to arthritis. Part of my every day experience is reassuring people that I am indeed ok. I often feel tempted to mirror their expressions, to make them see how worrisome they look, as they scurry, phone to their ears, hands cupping some beverage, walking as fast as they can to their destinations.
This summer, here in my newest place, there have been some humid days. I relish them. I am also looking forward to fall, because I know the trees will dazzle me. But come November-ish, I know I will feel the coming of cold and gray, and I will book my ticket to the wet green landscape, the swampy clime that soothes me.
