It’s difficult to describe triple-digit desert heat to someone who has not experienced it. So for those who are not joining me in the craziness that is summer in Tucson, Arizona, here are some pointers:
Think hot hairdryer in your face, not only assaulting you with furnace-like heat, but sucking moisture out of you with the dryness.
Think going through at least a couple of outfits a day if you plan to actually do anything physical. And if you do plan to do anything physical, think having to get up VERY early to do it, or else waiting until the sun goes down. Therefore think 6am and 8pm-in-the-dark dog walks.
Think coming up with innovative ways to stay cool. Spritzing your face with water is a good one. Lots of people carry them in their cars for the days (cos it happens) when not even full-on air conditioning can reach your poor kids in the back seat. Many parents in Southern Arizona are also to be seen pouring water from a bottle onto the top of their and their children’s heads. This is a great, effective cool-er off-er, although it kind of sucks if you’re wanting to look the least bit attractive or you just got your hair done for a night out.
But that last point brings me to something that ‘s important to acknowledge if you’re a summer desert dweller: you can’t care about what you look like. In a climate where just walking 20 paces from your car parking spot into a building involves such extreme temperature changes – 70-something degrees in the air conditioned car, 105-110 degrees and blazing sun outside, 70-something inside the building – that you sweat profusely, even if you’ve only been outside for seconds, you must set aside any pride or vanity. You must carry a tissue and mop your brow before the business meeting you’re attending, or find another way to get the sweat both off your hairline and your upper lip (pretending you need to blow your nose might help, although you’ll need a bloody great big tissue if your hairline needs dabbed as well), or get there 10 minutes early so you can dab at your sweaty parts and fan yourself in the ladies’ in advance.
It’s brutal, you see. And we Tucsonans will do anything to make it less brutal. We will fight each other physically for parking spaces that are shaded. We will cut our hair short or forego necessary eyeglasses in the summer – yes, we will be blind – just to avoid the extra sweat. We will avoid wearing bras under clothing if at all possible (tricky when your boobs are no longer 20-something-pert). We will live our life at home in our underwear or swimwear. Sometimes, many times, we will go without the underwear and be found hosing ourselves down on the patio in just one layer – the thinnest possible, a cotton dress.
OK, I speak for myself with those last couple of sentences. Last Friday, whilst preparing food for a gathering at my house, I was to be found in only underwear for the first couple of hours of the day. Then when I got sweaty I donned my bikini (and my body is waaaaay past public bikini wearing but that’s how much of your mind you lose when it’s hot) and jumped in our pool. Our pool in the summer is really just for plunging in and cooling off. Swimming happens not during the day but at night, when the sun goes down. (I never ever thought I’d find myself telling people that “it’s too hot for a swim” but really, it happens - in Tucson, anyway. The water may be cool but the sun is so fierce you can almost feel the melanomas forming on your skin. Horrible.) Then I came back in, dripped dry in the kitchen, got back to my food prep, and repeated the pattern: cook, sweat, cool off in pool, enjoy blissful cold as the water evaporated off of me inside the house again, then work up to a sweat again.
I write this not to attract peeping Toms or get my male readers excited (please don’t be - I just turned 46 and it ain’t a pretty sight) but to assure my fellow desert ladies that it’s OK. It’s OK to hang out in your undies – or nothing at all if you’re so inclined (I was raised Scottish and Presbyterian so I needn’t say more about being comfortable naked). It’s OK to show off your bits to the neighbors sometimes. We back onto a house with teenage boys and a treehouse. I have heard the rustling and giggling sometimes when I’ve jumped in the pool either in saggy cotton undies or nothing at all. And I couldn’t give a shit. Let ‘em be shocked, or disgusted, or excited if middle-age flabbiness is what floats their boat.
And another note, to my Hubby: usually I detest you sitting around in underwear. Sorry, but I do. It smacks to me of slobbiness and poverty and just plain indolence. But I make an exception when I’m doing it too. Of course I do. It’s only fair, isn’t it?