in summer in hot places
we sleep during the day
become nocturnal
listen to cicadas and the owl in the oak
mother raccoon with twin kits bumbling up and down the porch steps
black witch moth rustling around the light over the door
tiny possum children tipping the cat bowl
crunching melon rinds, being small and on their own
community cats trilling and chirping as they pass each other on fences.
This summer under the hell dome I struggled to keep “normal people” hours when in the past nobody gave a shit if I didn’t. Back then I worked early morning or late night jobs and only my parents didn’t get it, most people accepted it. But now my primary care doctor and the covid clinician have both expressed concern about my nocturnal habits and recommended melatonin and various insomnia cures and therapies, bless them. It is easier for me to function at night when the day is hot. I have the sun at dusk and dawn, cat nap during the hottest parts of the day if life allows, and eat, wash the dishes, do laundry, binge shows, spy on raccoons, and listen to owls in the wee hours of the night.
What would it be like if we had infrastructure for seasonal nocturnal behavior? At the very least it would help us deal with climate change and the dangers of being outdoors at midday. Definitely expand and add to public cooling stations and nice siesta areas to shelter people during the brutal part of the day, but otherwise have plans ready for when, I don’t know, like it’s over 105° every day for a month and beyond. For when people with multiple transportation options are driving/ride-sharing rather than biking or using public transport because air conditioning is necessary, the bus stop is dangerously hot, thus we plunge into the whirling feedback loop of our collective demise.
Also, since I’m going on about the seasonal nocturne, quality of life isn’t just about being comfortable in your home with the AC or fan or whatever, the heat eventually makes us stir crazy. I go outside every day at dawn and dusk to tend the garden and get a little sun because apparently long covid isn’t helped by a vitamin D deficiency1 but as much as I love heat and sunshine, there is a LIMIT. Mine is 29 days in a row over 100°.
So my proposal is to reserve some public spaces to be calm, magical, quiet little night worlds with subtle downlighting, fragrant local trees, whispering commuters on the way to their chill evening jobs, night blooming flowers, little plaques that identify what wildlife, plants, and fungi are around and how to properly respect them, boardwalks and other permeable walkways instead of sidewalks, and water-wise irrigation to keep everything alive.
This record stretch of 100+° days gives me extra anxiety, beside the normal “oh shit climate change” fear. Chased indoors, in the middle of fuck off Texas, I witness the garden crumbling to dust in spite of the watering, mulching, shading, begging, cajoling. I dream of tall rainforests and breathing high concentrations of oxygen like fancy people. On watering days I watch a prism of sun rise and set through hose spray, cheer for plants that still live, mourn those that are yellow husks on the ground. As bad as it gets, as persistent as this hell dome becomes, when I watch the news it looks worse everywhere else — landslides, floods, widespread terrifying fire, tornadoes, rumbling earth, people on the move from places under far worse stress and violence to be greeted by razor-wired buoys and hostile border keepers. I am anxious that I can’t grow food and am indoors too much, and that the forecast is never-ending heat and no rain — but the pantry is full and the air conditioner so far is holding on for dear life, so I can too.
I don’t look forward to the bills.
I don’t know how to market the skill of walking around slowly, making notes and adjustments and figuring out what will keep a small garden alive until September or October, attempting to start seeds to plant out as soon as rain is in the forecast and temperatures drop. How does one plan when every day is too dry and too hot to be safe outdoors to make small plots of land produce more than the cost of production? The infernal heat has stunted so many plants — my hope is that they are building strong roots so that when we have relief they’ll bounce back, but I don’t know, so I just keep the soil watered, pay attention to changes and signs of stress or damage, and try to keep them from going crispy. Following summer planting guides and growing calendars doesn’t work anymore — almost every seed soaked and direct sown in late June needs to be watered multiple times a day by hand (I dip an old coffee can into a bucket of water and drench the dry soil) to keep from drying out, and many of the seedlings were crushed or eaten by little woodland animals and community cats anyway.
The next garden will address that problem — I will convert sections of the bed to densely arranged grow bags and dig them into the ground a bit. I already placed some in spots where plants have been crushed, dug up, and eaten. Eventually I’ll arrange them into little honeycombs of plant guilds and once I like where they are, maybe I’ll maintain them in place forever until they become one with the land.
Solving garden problems (and art and sometimes cooking problems) is not as stressful as looking for jobs that match my current abilities and qualifications — much easier and more gratifying. At least, it feels like I am doing a positive and helpful thing by learning about how to adjust the garden for climate change, even if not much else comes of it. I would love even more to figure out how to achieve a flexible, productive home garden that can thrive in a climate emergency and also, encourage infrastructure to support a summer nocturne human activity shift.
rewritten because the original was total garbage writing — not sure what happened, I blame my mean long covid brainworm.
I also supplement Vit D because my levels are taking forever to improve. I think it helped with some of the joint pain, in case that is helpful for anyone.