It’s
hot. Really, fucking hot. And not “cute” hot, not the watermelon-on-the-shorts-pocket
weather that teen movies are made of, which renders many a prepubescent boy
inert on his way into a freezing movie theatre: no. This is a fierce, unruly
hot, the type that sticks to vinyl bus seats, and makes sleep a distant dream.
I’m sitting with my legs fanned out in front of me,
double window flung open in a desperate “ah,” waiting for the night air to fold
in and eventually, blessedly, replace the stink of day. Here in Southern
California, we don’t like heat. Warmth,
sure—a thin Pashmina in a cool restaurant, or the spray of salt over sun-bitten
shoulders—but the moment it gets icky, we want out. Last week, in the middle of
teaching high schoolers the joy of improvisational theatre—not itself the least uncomfortable task in the world,
but whatever—one of my students squirmed from her cross-legged seat. “How are you?” I inquired, knowing that if
high school was anything like I’d left it, she probably hadn’t been asked in a
while. “Ugh. I’m just so over this heat,” she told me. “It’s like, really
awkward to wear UGGs in this weather.”
And so it went. Santa Barbara was subjected to
temperatures crowning 100-degrees, civilians forgot how to drive, and workers
pooled their sick days. Artists clung faithfully to air-conditioned coffee
shops, and a hundred UGG-booted teenagers followed in suit; ruminating, in an
accidental sweat lodge of our own unease, upon the question at our sticky
hands. What happens when we’re truly uncomfortable?
The answer: we want out. By any means possible, as
quickly as possible. Someone tells us that drinking hot coffee lowers body
temperature, and we let it scald our throats. A comment made in passing sends
embarrassment to the cheeks, and we hide inside a bathroom ‘til the pinky stain
of giving-a-shit trickles back from whence it came. As a general rule, we’re
not cultured into waiting—wading—through moments of discomfort, but rather, to
claw our way out of the boiling pot. When someone sends a message that I’d
rather not read, I tend to “lose” my phone.
And why not? We live in a society where there’s a pill
for this, an app for that: a glass of wine to curb gracelessness, a paint to
dab on any zit that threatens to spoil school picture day. The moment a
relationship is more than laissez-faire, one party can make eye contact with a
girl across the bar, taking her outside to tongue the corners of her
slightly-downturned mouth, because—oh!—is it not a little better to break
something than feel strain? If we wait a little longer, there’s a chance that
we’ll feel pain.
However, if we wait a little longer, there’s a chance
that something infinitely interesting will happen. I reminded my
quasi-boyfriend of this, the day after he found another girl’s mouth at the
bar, and watched as his own lips bunched up in discomfort at our conversation. Staring
out the window, 4:00 p.m. heat pouring in, I resisted the urge to do what I
always do: to mend it with chatter, fill in the holes of our awkwardness in
order to rescue us both from the pit of confrontation. In that moment,
self-doubt gnawing at my core, the bloom of humiliation flooding my face like
ink, I would have done anything to leave. But I didn’t. I imagined tracing my
fingers along the inside of a pressure cooker, the same one he had placed
himself in—“I don’t know, it was moving so fast, I got scared”—and felt what it’s
like to just be. No judgment, no
scraping my way out of the pot. Not running, just being: angry.
Which, as it turns out, is a new one for me. The genuine rush
of anger as it arises in our gut—not rooted in blame, nor as a cop-out for
another, less tangible emotion—is a fascinating thing. As opposed to
frustration, it seeks not to destroy: simply to burn, self-contained, until the
ground is clear for takeoff. As human beings, we have three panic buttons:
Fight, flight, and freeze. The latter
is especially dangerous for women, and by far, the most common; when it comes
to getting good and angry, some of us don’t. We’re steered away from it. However,
it’s like swallowing a cold stick of butter; the nausea comes from the edges,
from the weight as it sinks like a stone. A minute in the oven, however, and
that shit’s as smooth as gold. Throw in some other ingredients, and forget it.
You’ve got cookies.
So. A minute or two of watching this beautiful boy—mouth
getting smaller by the minute—swelter in a prison of his own making, I thought
about what it means to sit through a moment of discomfort, allowing it to
blaze: not demolish, just burn. “I know your spirit animal,” he told me once,
over wine and the glow of beginnings. “You’re a firebird.” And indeed, as I
rise from the ashes—relishing what has been burned, because it means something
new—I’m beginning to think we all are. Firebirds, that is. What else could
possibly explain the Bikram Yoga industry, if not the subconscious desire to
cook one’s organs in an airless room, just for the chance to emerge into the
crispness of night, and for doubt—like sweat—to be left in a puddle behind?
Meanwhile, in the hills above our beloved, blistered
city, the worst drought in years rages on without pause. My mom keeps her
valuables in a kit by the door, ready to jump at the first sign of fire. I sit
in my room with my back toward the wall, thinking of my own blaze, my own
heart. “We are powerful,” a friend told me, tugging a strand of my gingery hair
between her fingers, her own crimson locks sweeping across her face as the
Santa Anas blew in from the east. “Don’t forget, firebird.” And I won’t. Not today,
as my mother makes signs for her house, designating what cannot be burned. Not
today, as a buildup of tinder spills out on the hills, and our lake is as dry
as a bone. When checked, wildfires are natural; they consume in a cycle,
returning nutrients to the soil, chewing up putrid plants to make way for new
seeds to appear. It’s the buildup that’s cause for concern.
Next week, it might be cold. And that might feel just as
awful—in its own, stuck-in-a-tent, icicle toe type of despair—and it might be marvelous,
too, in the sense that it forces some change. In truth, it’s discomfort that
saves us. It’s sitting through moments of out,
I WANT OUT that’s the detox: emerging, we’re altered. We are bent, but with
bravery: warm, slightly softened. Like butter. And better, somehow.
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