Wednesday, February 6, 2013
I/the heat
On very hot days, I think I'd almost prefer Santiago's weather to be humid. The heat here presses heavily down, apart from you, like some giant oppressive master and there's no recourse but to continue on your shuffling way. In Sydney and in Asian countries the heat remakes you in its image, a watery being with a solid centre and a slippery outer. A lot of people hate it but I have this mind-trick where I chose to accept the heat and enjoy the earthy sweatiness of my bodily existence, like swimming or playing in the dirt. You might say that the heat and myself become one. And now I wonder if it is humidity that bears responsibility for pantheism and Buddhism's not-self.
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2 comments:
I used to enjoy the heat (such as we have it here in Hobart), and enjoy the challenge of surviving it. But having a small baby changes that: on the 42C day we had last month, I spent the whole day monitoring Georgie in case he was overheating. It's quite a trying thing, being responsible for another being's heating and cooling.
I imagine so! Though it's fascinating what babies' bodies can put up with - some retired missionaries from South Africa were passing through here the other day and I spent the day showing them around. They told me that the indigenous South African women will carry their babies tucked tightly into a sling slung across their back and *always* with a thick beanie on their little, sweaty heads so they don't get sick. In the African heat!
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