A Prayer For Cool Breeze
It’s only August, yet I’ve already started listening to Christmas carols.
Paris, like a few other cities around the world, is currently experiencing a heatwave. So this is me trying every trick in the book to fool my mind - and body - into thinking temperatures are way cooler than they are. I’ve also begun stuffing rolled up toilet paper under my armpits. It gets the job done - for now. But I was quite ready to try feminine maxi pads. I’m not kidding. Anything is game to survive this heat!
Another, more radical, alternative would’ve been biblical justice. As in, if your right hand offends you, cut it off. But that’s a bit too gung-ho, even for uncooperative armpits. Since I’ve been here, this is perhaps the fourth consecutive year of extreme summer temperatures. Two years ago, the mercury climbed to a record 40 degrees. I remember begging my mother via WhatsApp message to send me a care package of cool breeze. It was a half jest, half serious request to which she responded, “Who’s fighting this time?”. I didn’t understand her question, so she explained: “The last time you asked for 'cool breeze' Janet* and Chico* were fighting. You were about three years old, and I asked you, ‘Mario, you want some water?' You said, 'No Mommy. Mi only want cool breeze!' And you planted yourself by the front window.”
I don’t remember the episode. But it makes me chuckle at the thought of my then three-year-old self, declining the glass of ice-cold water for a bit of cool breeze. I think about this story from time to time - especially on days like today, where despite Europe’s fake sweet pepper sun, it gets sweltering. In built-up Paris, outside of parks, there aren’t many mature, shade-providing trees - and surely not the kind I’m used to back home, which served the dual purpose of food and cover. Here, the few that exist in comparison are purely decorative, lining the kerbs of avenues, though sometimes they act as a respite for dogs to do their business.
But back to the present: the weather office predicts the hot spell will last well into next week. Honestly, at this rate, I will soon be out of tissue paper. As the last of Monica’s, ‘Grown-Up Christmas List’ strains though my earphones, my thoughts return to Jamaica, my family, and my own urgent grown-up needs, which for right now, are the same as my three-year-old self. I just want cool breeze.
*Names changed to protect the privacy and identity of the individuals.
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