The two longest months of the year are February and July. February is a long month, I think, because it is the dreariest of the winter months and the bills from the December holiday, having dribbled in during January, all become due, so no matter how you try to budget it, the income for that month has to stretch farther than it does for any other month.
July is a long month because I spend it in Alabama. Today is July 18. These first eighteen days feel like thirty-one. When we first married, we lived in North Carolina for three years. July wasn’t as long then because it wasn’t as hot there as in Alabama during the same month. The daily temperature in North Carolina was two to three degrees cooler. You wouldn’t think it would matter, but it did.
The July heat crashes into you as soon as the month arrives. There are places and seasons where the weather likes to ignore the calendar. Alabama in July is not one of them. (An Alabama fall or winter, on the other hand, can have four seasons in one week, maybe even one day, but that’s a different post)
Whatever poets waxed eloquent about the halcyon days of summer do not live where I live. I read a line from a poem about the “whispers of cicadas.” Our cicadas don’t whisper. Their song constantly undulates from a dull shout to a cresting wave. It’s even louder when the thirteen- or seventeen-year batches hatch.
Outdoor recreation, unless it involves water and shade, grinds to a halt until after 6:30 p.m. at night. I spend my time hurrying from the air-conditioned house to the air-conditioned car to the air-conditioned office or store and back again. Because of the vagaries of the building where I work, I end up having to wear a sweater while I’m in the building, a terrible waste. The controls are building wide; we don’t get to regulate the temperatures in our individual office suites. Ten seconds outside is enough to banish any lingering chill.
August is also hot, but most Augusts have a “cool” wave about the third week, which makes August shorter than July. Down here, school starts mid to late August, so that breaks up the month as well.
What months seem long to you?
