Haibun: Summer Heat

Moving to the Arizona Desert where it has been over 110 degrees for the past month, I feared the heat. I knew I could do the cold, I could relax into a 25 degree night for a walk in shorts and t-shirt, but to sustain the heat for a day, a week, a month, I wasn’t sure. 

It was 28 degrees (F) out, in a t-shirt and jeans, I went out to the car to find something. I was at my parents house for Christmas. My sister and brother-in-law pulled up with their kids. We started talking, I grabbed my little niece to carry her and her bags inside. She asked where my jacket was. I realized I was outside for a while without a coat. 

When it would snow, I had my favorite hoodie to go shovel in. When I was about to sweat, I would take it off and had an old t-shirt on and would finish. I grew up in mountains of Upstate New York, I slept with my window open through the winter, so going outside in the cold was second nature. 

I later heard about the “Ice Man,” Wim Hof, who taught that to take an ice bath, you need to control your breathing and relax into. I didn’t need to put ice in my bath, all I had to do is draw a cold bath in the winter and I had something similar. I could take cold showers as well.

My first few summers in the desert, I avoided going outside if it was over 100. I had to move a former employer into his new shop with a coworker who fell apart in the heat, so I knew it wouldn’t happen unless I carried the load. It was only 107 at the worst and I thought I would die.

But I changed my attitude. I did more than just adjust to the heat. It became a mindset. I decided to choose it and to remember I chose it. I save my truck’s air conditioning till I’m done for the day or have to go for a ride longer than 15 minutes, and I don’t even think of the heat. And if I start to think of the heat, I remember I chose it, I embrace it, and my focus returns.

It is all in what we choose.

sun washing over

rocks and dirt, a torrent of

intense summer heat