Not Made For Human Consumption

We hit the summer weather in Nashville, TN, a few weeks ago. Plants, flowers, and trees seem to love the southern humidity. They thrive in 90 degrees and crave the 100’s.

Me? I wasn't made for such heat.

Being from Michigan, I sometimes find the hot summer sun an unavoidable intruder on my sanity and temperature gauge.

Sweat

People in the South find themselves sweating from areas of the body that people from other parts of the country may not realize sweat.

Did you know knees, ears, and elbows sweat? Even beards and the hair on the top of your head can perspire. And I do not mean the skin underneath the beard or the hair. I mean the hair itself.

Summer

I remember the first summer we lived in Nashville. I walked 50 feet from my car into a Food Lion grocery store and when I arrived, I felt like a cowboy who’d just rode through Death Valley and was ready to fall off his horse. I felt like a drunk stumbling out of a bar. It was hard to compose myself. I had unknowingly fought the sun, and the sun won. It was a 20-second fight and I began to wither a third of the way through.

That was when I learned the meaning of the word, Faint, F A I N T.

Scarlett O’Hara

Previously, when I heard Scarlett O’Hara say, “I feel faint,” I thought in my Mid-Western “Don’t be such a crybaby mind” that Scarlett was a bit of a wimp, but I lost that idea in the Food Lion grocery.

Growing up in Michigan, I'd been under the delusion that it was harder to live in the snow and cold than the heat. It was obvious you had to be tough to take months of freezing weather, snow, and no sun for weeks.

We were so resilient as kids that in the eighth grade, you could find me and my friends walking to the bus stop with wet hair in 29-degree weather. We’d leave our jackets unzipped and take pride in seeing our freshly washed locks turn to icicles. 

Tough

Now that I’ve spent many summers in the South, I have learned that you can't be soft and endure the ever-threatening “I will turn you into mush Southern heat.” You have to be strong to take the “I will beat you to death humidity.”

I've never been punched by Andre the Giant, but if I were, I imagine it would feel similar to getting hit by the Tennessee sun on a 94, but it feels like a 102-degree day.

This real-life experience brought me to the conclusion that you have to be tough to live in the heat as well as the cold and survive to tell the tale.

In fact, I think we would all agree that you must be strong to survive in this world, at all.

So today, I praise humans everywhere who can handle weather (and life) not made for human consumption. Hats off to you! You are courageous and strong people.

I wish you a beautiful summer and hope you experience many days when the weather gives you a break, a cool breeze, and a sweet song to sing.

Stay wild stay free,

Rachel Hutcheson