Oh, yes, it’s going to be one of those mornings! Either rain fell during the night and the clouds linger, or just a foggy day. Getting dressed, I wrap my bra round my chest, then hook it in the back. Ugh, the fabric’s damp already. Tee-shirt and shorts feel no better—they seem weighted, limp. Going downstairs, I find the arms of chairs on the porch glistening with moisture. Eight o’clock and a church bell tolls across the marsh; in the laden air, each bong sounds like a note on a French horn.  

It’s sweaty-upper-lip weather, peel-yourself-off-the-furniture weather. Making the bed leaves me as sticky as though I’d just mowed the lawn. Paperback books take over tables, the pages splayed open as though exhausted. When I open a letter, the paper feels like a piece of old sheeting. At the desk, I insert scraps of wax paper to keep envelope flaps from sticking—that is, if they haven’t already stuck.  

All day, my clothes cling. Leaving the house, I step into the midst of a gel and displace molecules in the act of coming together, I shrug off invisible damp fingers.  Driving, every time I leave the air-conditioned car, my glasses fog.  

Later, getting supper, I avoid anything involving egg whites or cream, for the moisture prevents whipping as well as sogging up any chips and crackers which haven’t been tightly sealed. This is ideal weather for potato salad and cold sliced meats. And take-out. No-effort meals.  

Afterwards, talk slows down, then peters out. So do the brothers, appropriately Pete first, then Andy; both tramp heavily up to bed. Draped over the couch, I keep on with my whodunnit, sunk in what comfort I’ve managed to find. Come time to lock up, though, I risk waking everyone. So swollen is the wood relative to the frame, the only way to close the front door is a thick, heavy slam. 

Ah, yes, east coast humidity. Or ‘hummaditty’ as I used to hear the word in the nasal tones of E. B. Rideout, weatherman on Boston’s WEEI when I was a kid. My mother called these conditions ‘misty-moisty.’ Whatever term you use, I’ve noted mornings when “Church was a soggy business today.” Or another day, “Just a five-minute walk got me all stickied up.”  

At our Craigville cottage, humidity is a blanket, an invisible curtain that not only drapes one’s skin but also envelops the day. In fact humidity and its cousin fog are downright fibrous, the air thick and furry. 

An after-supper walk quickly frizzes my hair and covers my glasses with pinpoints of moisture as dense as a dandelion puff. The beach is all in neutrals, the horizon fuzzy. Someone passes me with a Weimaraner on a leash; with its pearly gray coat and luminous moonstone eyes, the animal blends right in, as though it’s a spirit-of-the-weather hound.  

Coming back as dusk descends, I walk more by feeling than sight; the roads have become voids, with no boundaries between the surface and trees or shrubs alongside. People are almost invisible until you get close, though scraps of their conversation float ahead . . . “When I was in high school” . . . “We had a lovely dinner at”. . . . 

From within the dampness, a solemn, disembodied voice is speaking.  Look, pal, you gotta take account of me: Weather. Back east here, you don’t just go about doing things freely or unconsciously. Though it’s not winter yet, I’m reminding you of reality. I matter. Around here, you’ve got to reckon with me.