I Wish I Were A Water Lily

Water Lilies by Monet

April, 1999
Dear,
I can’t tell you how scared I am of the weather to come. It’s April 7th and already registering 92 degrees – smashing the record. Fear and trembling in the face of God, freedom and immortality can’t hold a candle to my fear of the heat that lurks and prepares to cook us. Those degrees are in league; they are uniting and assembling into an inferno. Do you remember how there’s no cooling in the evening? Do you remember how here in the City, the degrees don’t expire as the sun goes down? They simply soak themselves into the sidewalks and the buildings. Then, when you are gasping and ready to scream – please, please no more, there is just silence and indifference and you are driven at 3 or 4 in the morning to take yet another shower. Once we walked hand in hand in the garden at 104th Street and admired the lilies suspended in the coolness of the pond. Now we don’t admire as much as wish we were those lilies. Soon we will be … or sand.

Sharon