A Literary Canopy for a Hot July Day
Dr. Andy reflects on negotiating overheated perambulations
“Trees are poems that the earth writes upon the sky.” — Khalil Gibran
Dear Friends,
Walking home from the UC Davis campus after teaching a class yesterday, I found myself charting a route that provided me the most shade. Even when the temperature hits 105 degrees in the bright sunshine, it might feel 15 degrees cooler under the shade of a tree.
I developed this habit as a boy who was not burdened by vigilant supervision. In the summers of my childhood, both my parents worked seemingly more than 40 hours a week, and I I spent almost as many hours every summer week exploring my neighborhood, and, when I became older and could run farther, more of Washington, D.C. My friends and I invented games, invented quests, and even built forts in public lands, typically not sharing the details of our adventures with our parents.
As a fair-skinned child who was not told to sunscreen before leaving for the day, I hugged the shade or burned, typically the latter. Unlike in Davis, D.C.’s humidity held the heat, meaning that on some nights it might still be 90 degrees outside at 11 PM. On such nights, we set out the futons and Japanese mattresses on the living room floor where the window AC unit was the strongest.
As a young reader, I would revel in those passages of classic novels that showed characters who loved the environments they explored as much as I did. For instance, consider this passage from Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë: "I lingered round them, under that benign sky; watched the moths fluttering among the heath, and hare-bells; listened to the soft wind breathing through the grass; and wondered how anyone could ever imagine unquiet slumbers for the sleepers in that quiet earth."
Consider also the decidedly less literate narrating of Huckleberry Finn: "Sometimes we'd have that whole river all to ourselves for the longest time. Yonder was the banks and the islands, across the water; and maybe a spark - which was a candle in a cabin window - and sometimes on the water you could see a spark or two - on a raft or a scow, you know; and maybe you could hear a fiddle or a song coming over from one of them crafts."
We have to turn to Steinbeck for representations of the intense heat we are feeling today: In The Grapes of Wrath, we learn that sometimes California clouds just give up trying: "The sun flared down on the growing corn day after day until a line of brown spread along the edge of each green bayonet. The clouds appeared, and went away, and in a while they did not try anymore."
The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck makes us glad that most of us don’t have to labor outdoors on a day like today: "The sun beat down upon them, for it was early summer, and her face was soon dripping with her sweat. Wang Lung had his coat off and his back bare, but she worked with her thin garment covering her shoulders and it grew wet and clung to her like skin."
The wind was still blowing at dawn this morning when my son Jukie set out to claim our daily quota of steps, so far 15,829, while we still dared. As we cut through the increasing heat, I was reminded of Hilda Doolittle’s poem “Heat”:
O wind, rend open the heat,
cut apart the heat,
rend it to tatters.
Fruit cannot drop
through this thick air—
fruit cannot fall into heat
that presses up and blunts
the points of pears
and rounds the grapes.
Cut the heat—
plough through it,
turning it on either side
of your path.
I don’t know where your path will take you on this hottest day of the year so far, 109 degrees as I write this Wednesday afternoon, but as you go, give thanks for the trees that protect us, and visit every water fountain that you encounter on the way. As Frost says in his poem “Directive,” “Here are your waters and your watering place. / Drink and be whole again beyond confusion.”
Thanks to all the new Pub Quiz players joining us at the live quizzes and to all the patrons who have been enjoying fresh Pub Quiz content I share regularly. Thanks especially to new subscriber Sophie! Every week I check the Patreon to see if there is someone new to thank. I also thank The Original Vincibles, Summer Brains, The Outside Agitators, John Poirier’s team Quizimodo, Gena Harper, the scintillating Mavens who carefully take note of casual adjectives, and others who support the Pub Quiz on Patreon (where I am also sometimes sharing drafts of poems). I would love to add your name or that of your team to the list of supporters. I appreciate your backing this pub quiz project of mine!
Best,
Dr. Andy
P.S. Thanks to everyone who came to the bonus Pride Pub Quiz that I hosted last week. Here are three questions from that event:
Notable Davisites. What local politician served as Mayor of Davis during most of the Coronavirus pandemic lockdown?
Harvey Milk. Was the town of Woodmere where Harvey Milk was born found outside Boston, Chicago, Houston, or New York City?
People Named James. What essayist and novelist wrote the influential 1956 novel Giovanni’s Room, which explores queer themes?
P.P.S. Happy Independence Day!