Three Days in August
Three days ago, a wet blanket of fog settled over my city quietly, like a whisper in the night. It hasn’t lifted.
The night before, the sunset was a brilliant shade of pink. Sailboats crowded the harbor. Our shared roof deck was overflowing with wine-toting revelers and bro squads with unleashed dogs at their sides. It was as if they knew what was coming. I didn’t.
The following morning, I woke up to 50 shades of gray. The view from my windows changed by the minute. For a while, I couldn’t even see the water 100 feet away, just a wall of fuzzy white. It reminded me of static on TV in the middle of the night after the stations had gone off the air, back in the days before the 24-hour news cycle and infomercials.
A few minutes later, the base of the buildings appeared. Then the span of the Zakim Bridge. But not the masts of the bridge, the ones designed to look like white sails. The fuzzy white turned into hazy gray, and then the rain began. A mist, then a drizzle, then a downpour. Water pooled in the street below my windows until it almost reached the top of the curb. There was no wind, so I was able to open my windows without fear of the floor of the rented apartment being damaged. After a while, the soft sounds of the rain lulled thoughts of the day’s agenda until all I could do was surrender to it. Sit on the couch, grab a stack of magazines and put the rest on the back burner.
The rain let up later in the afternoon, but the fog did not. The tops of the skyscrapers were shrouded in dirty-cotton clouds. The clouds didn’t swirl or shift. They settled like an old cat in front of a crackling fire. The boats still made their way through the harbor but slowly like gnats that have fallen into a glass of Chardonnay. The tall ships filled with tourists appeared and disappeared out of the mist like ghosts from the Tea Party era.
The sun set, but there were no shades of pink this time. One moment, the sky was dimly lit, and then it was dark. The streetlights across the harbor looked like soupy stars from a far-off galaxy or like I was looking at them through squinted eyes. Green and red and yellow and white. The lights on top of the Zakim masts are magenta. Sometimes I could see their glow, but only out of the corner of my eye. Like looking at Orion’s Nebula, if you stared at the glow directly, it disappeared.
When the barges came through, they broadcasted their foghorns. Long and low and mournful and insistent. Like a desperate, jilted lover. “I’m coming home. Get out of the way.”
The party boats arrived later — not even dense fog can stop a Boston Saturday night. But their eclectic playlists — think Drake followed by Toto — sounded like they were coming from the horn of a Victrola phonograph. Muffled and subdued and tinny.
On day two, I awoke to soft light and a stillness not experienced since moving to the city. It was as if everyone was hunkered down. In August. Again with the rain, steady. And again it slowed and turned into mist. On the street, the tires of the passing cars made that splishy-sploshy-splashy noise that’s music to the ears of anyone who’s ever lived in the drought-stricken Southwest. Everything outside was wet, and I wanted to grab a coat, but it wasn’t cold. When I ventured out, the children’s pond on the parkway steamed. The air smelled briny and not-unpleasantly fishy, making me think of pilings and rope and San Francisco in June.
After a few hours, it hit me that I just wanted to be home. I wanted cozy and a home-cooked meal and the sound of that lulling rain filling every corner of my space. Back in the apartment, with the windows open and the air conditioning turned off, the posters on the walls curled and then the tape gave way until the posters drooped like long-forgotten subway adverts, which some of them are, actually.
On day three, I’m prepared. I’ve previewed the forecast, and we have three weather alerts: dense fog, flash flooding and coastal flooding. On my way out the door, I reflexively grab an umbrella and a handkerchief because the subway stations are like saunas, and my brow is going to sweat.
I sort of want to be depressed. It’s August, and I haven’t seen the sun for three days. But I can’t find it in me to feel sad because I’ve seen the photos of the fires in California and the temperatures in Arizona. And because being outside in this kind of weather is not uncomfortable if you’re prepared. I hear the rumble of the jets from Logan Airport, but I can’t see them, can’t even tell in what direction they’re flying. The traffic is hushed. It’s all hushed, and it makes you want to hold hands.
Some of the girls on Newbury Street are wearing tall boots, calendar be damned. Others are in tank tops and high-rise shorts, weather be damned. Their style seems to sum up Boston’s fuck-off-and-do-what-you-please-when-you-please attitude. I sip a cappuccino and take it all in like a sponge absorbing August rain.
