Coastal living at 110 degrees.
Yesterday topped 110 degrees.
Even the birds were silent.
The air, a steady bake, quietly hovered over the surface of our lives. On an otherwise normal day in Southern California, lawns singed. Tires burst. People withered.
If, indeed, geography is personal, then climate is even more so.
Here in coastal elementary schools, meccas of mid-century architecture blithely shaded scores of limp children in classrooms untouched by scientific concepts such as Global Warming, let alone one air conditioner. Not in the budget. Yet.
There were no extra fans, and no school AC. Perhaps, the (wise and loving) occasional homeroom teacher managed to provide, one or two fans of their own, for their classroom. But, generally, the schools were all left wide open.
Open and welcoming to the friendly skies of 1957, when they were built. The only catch is, it isn't mid-century any longer. It is now 2010.
School budgets no longer contain enough for books, teachers, or even for more children. Who will, no doubt, be increasingly educated by ghost teachers in rooms built in times which expected a far milder climates.
And now, while our children wilted no explanation was provided, but they adapted. They snuck out to dated echoey bathrooms to press wet, scratchy water-soaked paper towels to their foreheads. They survived. Quietly and steadily they adapted. Which is, I suppose, the biggest compliment one can offer a school, that their students use their wits to evolve.
What they were not taught: They were not taught why there are such things as El Nino, or droughts or new weather extremes of any kind. And the windows, all cranked open to the hot, baking air which echoing with silent trees after the birds moved on to shadier corners.
But, back to the heat. And the dust.
The sky; A dingy blue with a sepia smear of urban brown dragging along the horizon. Far away thunderheads teased the mountainous skyline, but what need have we in Orange County for things like rain?
Here, at the coast, we have open air classrooms, cafeterias. What do we need with climate protection? After all, it wasn't the kind of torch-blowing of the Santa Ana winds: This was different.
The heat yesterday was quiet. Silent, invisible and perversely intolerable.
Recently I re-read The English Patient, by Michael Ondaatje and was suddenly reminded of the passage where Almasy tells Katherine Clifton about the different kinds of desert winds...
Even the birds were silent.
The air, a steady bake, quietly hovered over the surface of our lives. On an otherwise normal day in Southern California, lawns singed. Tires burst. People withered.
If, indeed, geography is personal, then climate is even more so.
Here in coastal elementary schools, meccas of mid-century architecture blithely shaded scores of limp children in classrooms untouched by scientific concepts such as Global Warming, let alone one air conditioner. Not in the budget. Yet.
There were no extra fans, and no school AC. Perhaps, the (wise and loving) occasional homeroom teacher managed to provide, one or two fans of their own, for their classroom. But, generally, the schools were all left wide open.
Open and welcoming to the friendly skies of 1957, when they were built. The only catch is, it isn't mid-century any longer. It is now 2010.
School budgets no longer contain enough for books, teachers, or even for more children. Who will, no doubt, be increasingly educated by ghost teachers in rooms built in times which expected a far milder climates.
And now, while our children wilted no explanation was provided, but they adapted. They snuck out to dated echoey bathrooms to press wet, scratchy water-soaked paper towels to their foreheads. They survived. Quietly and steadily they adapted. Which is, I suppose, the biggest compliment one can offer a school, that their students use their wits to evolve.
What they were not taught: They were not taught why there are such things as El Nino, or droughts or new weather extremes of any kind. And the windows, all cranked open to the hot, baking air which echoing with silent trees after the birds moved on to shadier corners.
But, back to the heat. And the dust.
The sky; A dingy blue with a sepia smear of urban brown dragging along the horizon. Far away thunderheads teased the mountainous skyline, but what need have we in Orange County for things like rain?
Here, at the coast, we have open air classrooms, cafeterias. What do we need with climate protection? After all, it wasn't the kind of torch-blowing of the Santa Ana winds: This was different.
The heat yesterday was quiet. Silent, invisible and perversely intolerable.
Recently I re-read The English Patient, by Michael Ondaatje and was suddenly reminded of the passage where Almasy tells Katherine Clifton about the different kinds of desert winds...
_________
Almásy: Let me tell you about winds. There is a, a whirlwind from southern Morrocco, the aajej, against which the fellahin defend themselves with knives. And there is the... the ghibli, from Tunis...
Katharine Clifton: The "ghibli"?
Almásy: - the ghibli, which rolls and rolls and rolls and produces a... a rather strange nervous condition. And then there is the... the harmattan, a red wind, which mariners call the sea of darkness. And red sand from this wind has flown as far as the south coast of England, apparently producing... showers so dense that they were mistaken for blood. Katharine Clifton: Fiction! We have a house on that coast and it has never, never rained blood.
Almásy: No, it's all true. Herodotus, your friend. He writes about it. And he writes about... a, a wind, the simoon, which a nation thought was so evil they declared war on it and marched out against it. In full battle dress. Their swords raised.
Katharine Clifton: The "ghibli"?
Almásy: - the ghibli, which rolls and rolls and rolls and produces a... a rather strange nervous condition. And then there is the... the harmattan, a red wind, which mariners call the sea of darkness. And red sand from this wind has flown as far as the south coast of England, apparently producing... showers so dense that they were mistaken for blood. Katharine Clifton: Fiction! We have a house on that coast and it has never, never rained blood.
Almásy: No, it's all true. Herodotus, your friend. He writes about it. And he writes about... a, a wind, the simoon, which a nation thought was so evil they declared war on it and marched out against it. In full battle dress. Their swords raised.
_________
Reading this dialogue, I was reminded again, of just how intricately, intimately our internal life is bound up with our geography, and to be more specific how much our soul is defined by the climate of this geography.
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