Hot And Cold

The door opened and her foot landed on the hard grey concrete. The rest of her body stepped out from the house. Within an instant she felt a slap across her face. Beads of perspiration instantly formed on her lightly tanned skin. The slap had her reeling. She immediately stepped back into the comforts of her home, closed and locked the door, and tried to gulp in a deep breath. She raised her shaky hand to wipe her forehead and muttered the words, “Thank the good Lord for air conditioning!”

  The slap across her face, also known as the humid heat, had her shaking her head in disbelief. She kicked off her sneakers, walked back into the living room, and tried to ignore the looks her dogs were giving her. “What? It’s too damned hot!” She gave each of them a kiss, and set out to start her work for the day. The errands she planned on running could wait until later, although she knew it would not be cooler later. This would be the best she could get for the day. Heck, this would be the best she would get for a couple of months.

  Her “Inspiration Room,” as she called it was waiting for her to start her day. It was a small sunroom. Two out of three walls were windows overlooking the large back yard. She closed the French doors and took in her surroundings. There was a futon, for the few times more than a couple of people visited, a small television that was never turned on, a glass table that she couldn’t part with during the last move, and her small wooden desk. Of course there were bookshelves lined with all sorts of books. Her escape. She stepped to the desk. Her palms rested against the wood surface. Outside, what was normally a sea of green, her yard, was now brown due to a lackluster amount of rainfall over the past couple of months. Out further the plants around the potting shed had a little life to them thanks to the rain barrel they had put back there when they fixed it up. Even now that was almost bone dry. 

  She looked down onto her desk and frowned at the landscape design she had started a while back. Every day she moved it to put her laptop there. At the end of every day she would put it back, thinking tomorrow would be the day she would finish it. “I can’t plant it now anyways, it’s too damn HOT,” she whispered.

  Her fingers refused to move against the keys. Her mind wandered back in time to her childhood and early adult years. It was a different time, and completely different place. It wasn’t the hot she worried about there. It was the long, frigid, snow filled winters. When she was a child she never worried about those winters. As an adult, however, the season grew longer and longer by the year. It almost became a depression for her. Finally, she packed her bags and headed south. A slow smile came to her face. “It was just too damn cold...for way too long!” Her words made her laugh. She took in her surroundings once more, inhaled the cool, refreshing air, and started typing.

Does your area stifle you with heat or chill you with cold? Are you a hot or cold weather person? Have you ever moved to get away from certain weather, or weather conditions? What’s your preference, the beach or the mountains? Winter or summer?