Distant yapping from the mayoral election in NYC kind of reached my ears this summer, but otherwise it's been a very nice New York summer for me so far.
For many people, it continues to be difficult, and there's the slowly-settling feeling that Covid is going to be around to plague us, for possibly years to come.
Despite this, and because of this, I've noticed some beautiful things amongst the interpolation of seething heat and ferocious rainstorms.
This delicate little florette is all over NYC -- I spotted it here while in Central Park with a friend. We both looked it up using our phone apps -- lovely Lantana. (In a part of India, they use a Lantana variety to make furniture that's resistant to termites).
A split second meeting with a dragonfly. Lantana, dragonflies, the Bluejays that screech on the streets of Harlem at dawn, the high trees, the frenzied rats, stray cats -- all these natural world things are "busy about the Tree of Life", contingent upon but oblivious of us humans. That vast world,
oblivious of us, is simply... amazing. To me!
And yet, our base impact upon the planet insists upon us with greater frequency than ever. One day, the skies were muddy with a golden haze, as the smoke from the Oregon wildfires drifted thousands of miles eastwards, to gauze the air and atmosphere over New York with this unnatural orange.
I visited Bethesda, Maryland in early July, a few hundred miles south, but in the grip of an even more muscular heat. Here are the inevitable late afternoon cumulus storm clouds rolling in.
It was 103F on the afternoon I limped into Washington, D.C. with my friend Joe. How did people survive in the days before air conditioning?
I probably asked Joe something stupid like "why is it so hot?"
And for now, summer reigns.
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