I love a dry heat. I can stand it, I can appreciate it, it reminds me of my childhood.

I can remember one afternoon when I was 10, standing on cracked ground in an empty lot and wanting to play. No one was there, they were all watching Banana Splits. For some reason I wanted to go outside. I can remember vividly, opening the front door and leaving the ac filled house and immediately feeling the heat and hearing cicadas. The street was pretty empty, and I had been en route to our neighbors house but I stopped at the empty lot in between.

I knew our neighbors were not watching television. Nathan and Rebbecca were being raised half Amish. Their mother was Amish. What that meant was no television and only candy from the health food store and all handmade toys and clothing. Since their mother was pretty strict and seldom in a good mood, or so it seemed, not like other mothers who'd invite you in for Tang and cookies and be all smiles, I just stopped at the empty lot. I walked right into the center and spotted fire ants then veered off to the right, closer to our house. No weeds, just dried up dirt.

I used to like to dig for things and would dig in that lot and backyard. It was no easy task digging into that sort of earth. I'd find old trinkets left by "peoples that came before us" per social studies or stuff I had buried a few years before. I remember I just wanted to dig but I just stood there instead and did nothing but stand with my head down. I soaked up the sun I was feeling on my back. I didn't ordinarily get out of the house in the middle of the afternoon. Our day outside would stop at 1pm after playing in one of those collapsible pools and then resume at 6pm. I can't remember what made me stray from the usual ritual of afternoon television but there I was standing in the dry heat.

I remember feeling how my feet were firmly placed on the ground and I could really feel them on the ground and how it felt to be aware of that and the deafening cicadas and be the only one outside on the street it seemed. I thought how insignificant it was to stand and feel and hear under the heat of the afternoon. The sun made my hair hot and I could feel how it crept on my neck and shoulders and then thought how brown my arms would get and how important it was to stand there. I must have looked strange to a passersby if there had been any. All the windows around me had shades drawn. I only saw the Calico stray I was taking care of, slink up our driveway. It was insignificant and silly I thought but I continued because it was also very significant for some reason and I felt compelled to continue. Something I felt I should linger in because I would want to remember it later. I was a very strange kid always thinking of the past and the future when things around me were quiet. I thought one day my feet would be bigger and the ground may have grass or a house on it, wondered if I would ever remember what i was doing at this moment one day, one day my buried things never found again, what would I be and where would I go. It didn't last longer than five minutes before the sun stung and I thought of ants and magnifying glasses.

Then I just started to dig and I remember thinking that it would be more fun at this point to just go read a book or to the library and I went back inside the house leaving a very unenthusiastic little dip in the ground.
First thing I saw when I opened the door were some guppies in a fish bowl we were watching for a friend and that was it, end of memory.

I remembered this the other day when I got into my car after it had been parked in the sun all day. There were cicadas buzzing and I started the car but sat in the heat for a few seconds because it has been a dry heat. I especially liked how good it feels to warm up a bit after being colder than cold in the office. More than anything, lingering in the dry heat has catapulted me back to that moment on the empty lot that is still not a significant moment, yet very.

* I cannot stand humidity, ick, a humid hot- whole other thing...blehk