august in houston (11/100)
August is arguably Houston’s most uncomfortable month: temperatures are consistently in the 90s or 100s, the humidity is off the charts, and everyone casts a wary eye to the Gulf of Mexico, lest there be a hurricane lurking, waiting to make landfall. Even the most hardy Texan begins counting the days until mid-September, when, if the gods are kind, an early-season cool front might make its way this far south so we can catch a break.
(The truth is we all know the we’ll likely be waiting until October before that happens, but we can dream.)
I took a break and walked down my street today, and found this cone flower: still standing straight and tall, but all the colour was bleached out of her petals, so she was looking a bit faded. “Me too,” I thought, marveling that we’re now 5 months into staying relatively homebound because of the pandemic. “Me too.” I mean, things are still going fine in our house — we’re all healthy, we’re all working hard, and we’re safe — but we’re feeling a bit faded, you know?
That said, while summers are brutal in Houston, falls (as short as they are) are generally glorious: the humidity breaks, the temperature drops into the 70s, and when the day is clear, the skies are bluer than you can imagine. We just gotta get to fall.
Hang in there, friends. Though faded, keep standing straight and tall. We’ll get through this.
Soundtrack: Cold shot by Stevie Ray Vaughn
a reminder of cadence.