summer

our first summer back here was like roasting in hell. it was intolerably hot, our tummies kept giving up on us and we ate rice, potatoes and bananas each time it happened. and lizards poured into our home, themselves looking for shelter from the burning outdoors, from cracks between windows and walls, from gaps under the doors, and most of all from the badly filled-up electric-wire cavity for our split-AC. upto 3-4-5 baby ones would crawl in from above the AC in a day. the mother had probably laid eggs in that cavity after getting in from the other side of the wall. 

we formulated a tiring routine of scaring, trailing, and trapping each lizard with mop-rods Colin spray, and an upturned plastic bowl (washed and saved up from some home delivered food I think) on the hapless creature. then we would slide a piece of thick packaging paper or card under it, and holding that system tight I would rush out while he held the door to throw the living thing back outdoors. once I think it was inert with all that spraying on it by the time I threw it, but mostly it scurried away. I am terrified of lizards, but I rather than he would inevitably do that last part; because for me the thought of it remaining at home was more scary.

that summer and probably most of that year, we then spent sealing our windows, door gaps, in fact his first idea was to tape around the split-AC and seal the gaps there; that last actually worked, we got our AC guys to do it, that cleared us of lizards 90 percent. 

the next summer was mostly just very hot. and I swam again for a month, both years, just for a month cos I couldn't afford to spend all my savings (while unemployed) on more swimming. I felt, both those years in the peaks of those summers, like I'd die of the heat if I didn't swim. soon as I'd stop swimming I'd get diarrhoea from the heat. also both summers we got away for a bit, the first one a lil too late around June end and last year earlier in the beginning of that month (he got away a second time last summer).

but last summer was an improvement over the year before, with lots of intermittent showers. and this year is even better maybe thanks to the virus and reduced pollution, who knows. each of the previous summers I have thought I couldn't take one more, but it keeps getting easier, is it me or the weather itself? it's already mid-May and my tummy is still strong, without the swimming this year. I can sleep early mornings on the polyester sofa to escape sounds from the bathroom. I'm not dying and I'm even using less AC. 

it feels like someone is trying to prove to me how hyperbolic I was being in what I could tolerate and how long I'd be around. I had come thinking, max one year or maybe two. no more. and I'm still around and it's getting easier. now more than ever this fortified home of ours feels invaluable, where no one is coming and we have no where else to go from.