One Small Voice: We chose to endure lifestyle of heat

“Jesus H. Christ, we must be a mile from the sun.”

This was a line spoken in the 1985 film Volunteers by the character Lawrence Bourne III (Tom Hanks), upon landing in Thailand as a Peace Corp volunteer.

Today is Saturday, July 8^, and it is the third day in a row of triple digit heat exceeding 110 degrees in Arizona.

For us in the greater Phoenix area of Arizona – also known as the Valley of the Sun – triple digit heat is a common occurrence.  What is uncommon are the days where the heat registers in the hundred-and-too-many-teens degrees.

Usually when this happens, we have only three or four days of ungodly heat before the weather breaks.  But the forecast this morning says this dangerous heat will continue for at least another week, and the temps will get progressively higher, with a chance of reaching 116 degrees.

“But it’s a dry heat!” you say!

Yeah, yeah, yeah.  However, …

This is the kind of heat that when you open your front door you feel as if you’ve walked into a blast furnace.

This is the kind of heat that when you step out of your car at the grocery story your shoes stick to the asphalt.

This is the kind of heat that people jokingly say is hot enough to fry an egg on the hood of your car.  (And occasionally a local TV talking head will attempt to do it, with some success, albeit a rather slow fry.)

More importantly, however, this is the kind of heat that can make concrete sidewalks and asphalt crosswalks so hot it can raise burn blisters on the tender feet of dogs and cats. Which is why you will find cloth booties for dogs in all the pet supply stores here.

Our local news stations make it a habit to report extreme weather warnings at times like this. 

We’re advised to drink plenty of water, and not to wait until we feel thirsty to drink it, because then it may be too late to fend off heat sickness.

They stress that people would be wise to stay indoors, limiting outdoor activity to only necessary trips. And they especially warn against hiking the several attractive mountain trails in the Phoenix area, lest hikers fall victim to severe dehydration or, worse, heat stroke.

There are always the foolhardy few who defy the warnings and venture out anyway, resulting in costly rescue missions by first responders whose own lives are put at risk having to bring these (dare I say it?) morons safely back down the mountains.

Heat like this is oppressive, like a huge hot cloud that makes it hard to inhale.

But for an increasing number of northerners (like us) it’s a trade-off. The wet, green Midwest with its bitter cold and heavy snow, or dry, brown Arizona with sun that makes your skin feel crispy, and the endless dust that covers everything all the time.

We had a fair idea what we were getting into when we made the decision to move to Chandler, so the climate shock was minimal.

And though our primary reason for moving was to be very present grandparents, we have mixed feelings about the climate trade-off.

I dearly miss my lush gardens, and the deep woods behind our old home.

I miss the smell of rain, and the thrill of big, booming thunderstorms.

But I much prefer being too hot in the summer to being too cold in the winter.

And I’ll settle for the rare, brief thunderstorm that precedes a dust storm during Arizona’s so-called monsoon season.

I know that there is no perfect place to live on this planet.

There will be droughts or floods, earthquakes or hurricanes, blizzards or hailstorms, fires or plagues of insects.

There is no Eden, no Shangri-La, unless it is one that we make ourselves with friends and loved ones we hold dear.