Zen Humidity

As I write this, we are enduring a hot spell—temperatures stayed in the 90s for over ten days, brushing the 100s, and with our humidity, it felt like 120 most afternoons. Such weather plays with us. Nerves fray; patience slips; whining increases; and we find a whole lot of reasons to stay inside. It plays with our stuff, too. HVAC units begin to glow like the engine room furnace in the Titanic as they struggle to keep the temperature at a cool 78 (and seem just as doomed, too). Cars whose batteries are over a year old may refuse to start, which only increases all the human responses above. A few of us remember fondly those days back in February when we whined and complained that the temperature lurked around 20—gee, that felt great! 

And the Pope openly declares we have a climate crisis!

(let the political commentary begin…)

I am reminded, though, of a former teammate of mine from Davidson College. He was an interesting guy. I think he was born looking forty years old. He was lanky, bald, but with a beard of flaming red. He had granny glasses that never slid down his nose, no matter how hard the workout. He was a physics major, but I really think abstract philosophy was his true ilk. He ate a lot of vegetables, but never declared himself a vegetarian (and, back then, no one named themselves “vegan”). When we had “long days” (runs of fifteen or so miles), he always left us to the roads while he would dive into and onto power cuts, following mile after mile of high tension lines bringing power to Mecklenburg and Iredell Counties. We never followed him because Duke Power hung convenient little signs warning off trespassers and then made such waywardness more difficult by mowing the right-of-ways about once a decade. It was a bramble and tangle of bushes, trees, fallen limbs, poison ivy, invisible creeks, and sudden gullies. But that was where Tim would be, plowing through whatever faced him. He would come home muddy, bloodied, and tattered, but full of a peace and tranquility that was truly stunning.

Why does hot weather remind me of him?

We would return to practice in August, which in North Carolina, was the truly hot season. My friend did not waver from his power cuts, though, despite the fact that there was zero shade along them except at the edges, but he never ran the edges, always straight down the center, bulldozing through whatever. With his redhead complexion, he would often return glowing like a tomato. But he never once complained about it. He never really complained about anything. His demeanor remained as sure and stable in any context no matter what was happening. He did the best job of accepting whatever that I ever saw. He was the model of equanimity. 

A Zen monk?

No, he was human. I saw him get upset when something was really out of line, or a performance disappointed him, or an exam stressed him, but still, there was a calm, sure presence that would settle over him after a bluster. He seemed to innately grasp Christ’s admonition to not fret or sweat the trappings of a situation (cf. Mt. 6:25-34). His face exuded the same calm if he was walking across campus or grinding through a set of mile repeats. 

It is that calm that cools.

The weather will be the weather. We can predict what it will be, but we can’t do a blessed thing about changing it. It is hot. It may be hot for a while. It is summer. It is Augusta. The two go together like iced tea and lemon. 

Be calm.

It will pass into whatever comes next for us. Simply be in it. Make the adjustments to it. Shift as necessary. 

But keep calm. 

That will cool us down, keep us present, and help us continue to be who it is we need to be.

Still, I reach for a cold glass of lemonade with extra ice, not so much to drink, but to hold and rub against my face.

That does it…now I can breathe.

I wonder where Tim is?