The sun had gone down and it was dark when I left my son's yesterday. As soon as I stepped out I noticed the strange air: a thick, warm soup that strangely did not feel cloying. Rather, it was an enveloping comforting. I didn't perspire, my skin was not clammy. And when I got home and the thermostat read 78 degrees in my unit I did not turn on the air conditioner. I was not warm. Rather, I opened the balcony windows. Later, I opened the solid front door to get more of the night air's envelope.The air was sensual on my skin and I stripped naked. I slept all night with no air conditioning, the first time I had ever done that when it was 80 degrees outside. When I awoke at 5:54 the thermostat read 80 degrees inside. But I was not hot or clammy and had not soaked the bed sheets nor my night clothes with perspiration.

The sky chastens us daily now. It stormed off and on all the daylight hours yesterday and the day before. It is a school teacher brooding over us, angrily muttering, occasionally shouting that we have a big test coming and better be doing our homework. It is always hot. The high yesterday was 91 and the low 75. When I left to go to my son's it was 80 degrees out. From 7:23 p.m. until 11:53 the temperature range was 76 degrees to 78 degrees and the humidity 87% to 97%. From 9 p.m. onward there was "no wind," the air did not stir. All of those numbers do not add up to "comfortable", have never, to me, added up to "comfortable," yet that is how it was last night. The old schoolmarm was probably right. We do have a big test coming. But last night her brooding was comforting in a way that I had never experienced before.