New England weather, how I thought I would miss thee
Today was warm, even downright hot up on the UCSC hilltop (perhaps 80-85). And I, foolish knave of the Central Coast climate, wore a sweatshirt as I walked up to campus in the broiling sun.
My reasons were just: just yesterday the temperature was in the mid 60s, though for the few days before it was in the high 70s. I had thought that Indian summer that comes to this part of the world in late September/mid October was gone, its passing heralded by the arrival of the monarch butterflies from Mexico (a sight we have yet to behold). But no, it was back in full force today.
But somehow, as with all days here, the afternoon heat quickly passed after 4. There was a sudden bracing chill when N picked me up at 4.40, and by 6.00 as it grew truly dark, the heat was a vague dream. Santa Cruz is too seafaring to have warm, let alone hot, nights. Every night it turns 55 with a forbidding suddenness, as though a storm is brewing.
But the vagaries of afternoons are more complex. Many days it simply does not climb back above 60, and fog hugs the hills like some wraith, making us remember the Boston grays. Other days it clears by 9.00, but the heat doesn’t come until 12.00. And some days, it feels like home again — we wake and it is bright and hot, and we can’t even smell the sea, so dead is the air. But as the day wanes, things turn aright again, the temperature plummets, and the palm trees remind us that paradise, after all, isn’t unending warmth.
