Humidity

Mike's laughing at me for my idea of weather. The rain we experienced wasn't truly rain yet, not as he's known it, just as the humidity in the past two days isn't something most people who live in the South would notice. But I picked up on it right away. 

Before this trip started, one of my concerns was heat radiating off of the pavement. That hasn't been an issue at all. Humidity, that's a sort of heat that radiates from the grass next to the road. It's alive. Riding, you get a feeling for the stark contrast between the inanimate asphalt and the life force of the woods just to the right. Cold on one side, rising warmth on the other. 

The humid air feels like life. Sweating, you're alive, active, in motion. Thoughts of the last time I've felt like that: a baby sleeping on my chest in the summer, hot breath on my skin, hair matted down; but I wouldn't move him for the world, even if I was sitting in a puddle once he stirred. Summer nights too warm to sleep, you want to hold somebody close but you know the stickiness of bodies touching would lose it's magic pretty quickly because it's just too much. 

People wave at us on the road often in Texas, but it's hard to notice because they're in their climate-controlled cars with the windows up. They can't feel it the same way. They miss the bugs chirping, the squirrels rustling, the sheep bleating behind the trees. These sounds of life, sustained by that moist air. 

As we head deeper into Louisiana, I'm sure I'll have more of this "real" humidity and rain to feel. But I think it will still feel like life.