The Song of Summer

It’s summer here.  That means it’s hot.  This morning, on my way to work, it’s 88 degrees.  It’s getting quite muggy, too, because of the monsoon rains that are brewing.  Every afternoon, we all look up, and watch the clouds gather, coming in from the south.  They get darker and more ominous, hanging heavily over the city.  And we wait.  We wait for that smell that means the rain is mere seconds from falling and drenching your hot skin and cooling the parched desert.  Unfortunately, there is much teasing from the weather gods before rain actually comes.  The clouds build up for days, every afternoon filling us with false hope.  There are wild, unsubstantiated rumors flying around.  “We got a few drops yesterday,” someone will say and you feel unwarranted jealously welling up in your chest.  A few drops may be worse than nothing.  Just the taste of a dream is most likely more soul crushing than someone else obtaining what you long for.

Sometimes the clouds are just cruel.  Off in the distance, long vertical streaks line the sky – a tell tale sign that it’s raining somewhere.  The desire to jump in your car and drive as fast as the wind to find that water, to feel it on your face – it’s unbearable and irrational.

But still, the heat pushes down on us and we have to welcome it, suffer it, because without the heat the clouds won’t come. 

What brings on this love letter to rain?  World Cup Soccer.

Huh?

All over the world the critics on the TV and the blogosphere are railing against the vuvuzuelas – the obnoxious horns the South Africans blow endlessly through out the games.  Life long fans of soccer are being turning away from the games because they can’t tolerate the horns.

I’ve been keeping an eye on the games and I couldn’t understand what about the vuvuzuelas was so annoying.  In fact, the first game I turned on, I didn’t even hear them. 

Actually, truth be told, they unsettle me, but not the way they do the rest of the planet.  It finally occurred to me why this is.

They sound just like cicadas.  The desert is rife with the humming bugs during the summer.  You can’t walk outside without hearing them.  They, along with the crack of lightning and roll of thunder, are the song of summer.

The vuvuzuelas sound like a summer-rain lullaby to me.

It’s finally happened.  I’ve gone crazy from the heat.