Hermes's Den

            Gather, gather, gather if you would… call to my attention that the words have left my mouth before realizing none are gathered. I’ve been calling many to sup with me for some time but my invitations have been unanswered. I don’t mind, I do appreciate my alone time—the clarity one can find and lose in solitude could be catalogued away by someone far brilliant than I, but they may fail to realize that with some things you can only catalog down so far before you start splitting atoms and look how good that turned out. I love the sun as much as the next, but love lasts with some distance, don’t you think?

            As of today, there has been one solid, unbroken week of sunshine—or rather, last Wednesday, for the period of approximately two and a half to three hours, a fine, grey mass of cloud appeared to deliver a shake of cooling rain. I remember that day, and more importantly how it felt to be caught out in it. How, like the sun’s rays striking dawn, it felt smacking into my skin, shattering one age apart, washing a new age in. The hot weight of the air before and its cool levity after.

            Since, seven suns have come and gone, sailing each across a faultless forget-me-not blue sky. If it keeps up this way for much longer, the forget-me-nots may forget-us-all. I’m sure this is just climate collapse reaching me in another tangible, ancient way, one that would have a quick response, such as count, O child, how many times I have crafted deserts before you cry drought. A week of no rain would make others laugh and they’d have every right to—the trees and greedy grass still green and the fact there’s grass and trees in and of themselves shows more that water isn’t yet foreign here, but it’s troubling.

What I loved the most about the run up to and through summer, the thing I miss the most is the thunderstorm. I miss how the sky would dim like a few bulbs went out and the trees would roll in the wind like the churning sea. I miss the laze and awe that would accompany those first few strokes of lightning, the matching thunder following moments later, the rain pelting down. I miss trying to ignore it and desperately failing when it took the electricity to captivate me of the true meaning of a light show.

More than anything, I miss the luxury of not knowing exactly which hour of which day it will visit but that it will come to pass. The current forecast says the weekend and things being kind, we’ll get it. Until then, we’ll simply have to count the days and wonder how the change in rain will affect everything.

In an effort to find the upside to climate collapse, I hope the coming changes usher in multiple styles of clothing to deal with the future. The clothing of the contemporary era reflects the fact that we’re disconnected from the actual garment itself. Centuries of materials and styles have existed to manage excessive sun and lack of moisture without being an undo burden on the planet. Returning to some of these, that is, relearning and repopularizing while updating them could be the key to unlocking the future.