Heat Waves

We’re at the tail end of a 100 degree heat wave in NYC and half the country. The last time it was this hot in NYC was in 2012. My roommate and I stayed home in the A/C, drank vodka and smoked cigarettes in Washington Heights. At the beginning of the day, he said he was going to go for a run and I told him I thought it wasn’t such a great idea. It was so hot that day that a sewage tank burst and flooded the river along our running path. This was hilarious to see on the news, drunk, at 5 PM.

I dislike the expression, it was ‘a simpler time’ but in many ways, it was. Fourteen years later, it feels like we have to post how we’re beating the heat, who we’re with, who we’re fucking, what our chests look like in the sweltering sun. It’s the 4th of July weekend, Madonna just released a really good album, Taylor Swift is getting married right now at Madison Square Garden, and I just came back from a walk in the park where I saw an American Flag wave aimless and lonely, flapping against heat and smog.

There are changes and activities and endless news cycles. I left my job last week at a place where I both fit and didn’t fit in. And I’m left to wonder, in 100 degree heat, where is the core of it all? Or are we expected to go with the tide even if the current makes it difficult to swim?

A memory has resurfaced. Twenty-one years old, 2004, and I was driving at night, stoned, down the Florida highway, driving three hours south from my University, back home. Radiohead was blasting, stereotypically, from my dingy car speakers. I asked the same question then. What is the core, what is your being? What adjectives would you use to describe it? Anyone can ask that and everyone has answers that are solely theirs. And I think those adjectives should be kept as secrets, revealing themselves through action and art.

How many times can you reveal and describe, describe, describe? Does it last a lifetime? Do you just do it once? Do you share with only your spouse or as a form of intimacy with your child? Do you share it with the world or a small, curated group of friends?

The day isn’t over yet, the heat spell has not broken. I have stray cats to feed and keep cool and I should hit send on a few more job applications. The sad American Flag still waves in the air, the gays are posting what their favorite new Madonna song is, seemingly trying to prove that they love it more than you and you and you. But that’s not so bad, is it? It’s not so bad.