It’s hot in New York, but it’s hotter in Miami. Odd choice of vacation, then, for someone who hates the heat, but that’s where I found myself this past week.
It was actually cooler in Miami than in New York, but the Florida humidity is something massive. In every city, there’s a natural force that plays a side character: the beach in Rio, the mountains in Seattle, the energy in New York, the green in Dublin.
In Miami, it’s the heat. The heat informs everything else. Miami is Hot and Hot is Miami.
I’ve never done well with heat; it’s a personality trait at this point. When I first moved to the East Coast (having grown up in unshakably temperate Seattle), I cried when it got too hot for stretches at a time. “This weather is hurting my feelings,” I’d joke, but it really did hit on an emotional level. I wondered how other people could so easily stand it, and was embarrassed that I was so mentally affected by…the sun.
Then, one day, I greeted my boss when I came back from lunch, “I don’t know why this heat is really getting to me. How is everyone just so fine with it?”
He said, “You know, some people feel heat more than others.”
Wow.
What.
Incredible.
Groundbreaking.
SOME PEOPLE FEEL HEAT MORE THAN OTHERS.
While it’s impossible to “prove,” there’s plenty of anecdotal evidence (ahem, me crying while looking at the forecast) to demonstrate that different bodies sense temperature in radically different ways. I suspect that summer-loving friends around me are actually registering the temperature as a few degrees lower than I am. I read an account of a woman on the autism spectrum who literally feels pain when she gets too hot.
I learned from the documentary Free Solo that different brains respond differently to fear and adrenaline. Of course neurodiversity would result in richly varied responses to other stimuli.
As is the case any time I get a “diagnosis” for something that I assumed was a flaw in my personality, it felt liberating. I stopped struggling to fit into a season that just wasn’t designed for my tolerance levels—at least in this part of the world. I freely opted out of August music festivals and July street fairs, knowing that I’d probably end the day very grumpy. I learned to speak up about my cooling needs.
While traipsing around Miami, I had a system: “I’m sort of overheating—could we take an AC break?” I’d ask my boyfriend, who is well-versed in my extreme sensitivity by now (he takes it upon himself to cover my ears when there’s traffic noise), and we’d go inside for a moment to congeal ourselves before emerging back out into tropical inferno.
Over time, this simple Zen lesson (some people feel heat more than others!) has initiated a lot of growth when it comes to interpersonal intelligence.
Perhaps half of maturity comes from awareness about yourself ("What do I feel, or not feel, more than others?") and half of it is awareness of how to express it at the right times. And the other half (maturity defies math rules) is the ability to acknowledge and respect others’ own personal version of I-feel-heat-more-than-others.
This is a journey. I will be 290 years old by the time I start to fully grasp that not everybody is having my same experience of earth. Not everyone values the same things, comes to the same conclusions, responds to Frank Ocean’s music the same way I do.
Letting people be themselves is a full-time course at Earth School, but it gets easier when you learn how to say for yourself, “Here's what I can offer, and here's what I can't" or "I know this doesn't seem like a big deal to you, but it's hard for me."
Knowing your limitations and boldly speaking them without shame is a life hack to becoming more compassionate toward others’ limitations and admiring of their gifts, rather than dreaming of future in which everyone is a lot more like you.
My cat has been an important teacher for this subject. I don’t know anything about her life before I met her at the shelter when she was 9 years old, but I know she has a large collection of fears and sensitivities because she expresses them very clearly: I’ve never met a more hissy or skittish cat.
It used to bother my ego—“I saved you, cat! The least you could do is let me pet you!”—but now I simply adore her self-protective proclivities and her clear communication. Since she doesn’t speak English, to my knowledge, all she has is a hiss to tell me, “Hey, I’d rather not be pet right now.” It works, and I stop.
All day long, Sunflower the Cat is giving me feedback in her own way: Here's what I can offer, and here's what I can't.
It doesn't make me love her any less for what she can't be. She has an inner world and a long past history that I know nothing about, but shares stories about both when she demands chin scratches but panics when a door opens.
For years, I've felt so much shame about what I can't offer: I'll forever take everything personally, I'm always going to fear abandonment, I'll never be able to listen to punk rock for more than 30 seconds.
I have it in my head that I am not an easy person. Not easy to be with, not easy to love.
This has come up in therapy over and over, until a new therapist asked me, "What makes a person easy?"
Hm.
She continued, "I think it's easy to be around someone who's self-aware and can communicate what they need. Maybe even easier than being around someone with fewer needs who doesn't express them."
And all this time I thought "easy" meant someone who can freely endure the heat and doesn't constantly look for reasons why loved ones might leave.
Unlike Sunflower's history, I know exactly where my fears come from and I could justify all my worst behavior with sob stories from long ago. But we can only blame our childhood and our past for so long; we all have the responsibility to show up open-hearted in the world if we want to receive all the splendors it offers.
I get a thrill watching my cat eagerly receive her small quota of the love I have for her, and I appreciate that it takes her a long time to trust for reasons I'll never know. She wholeheartedly gives what she can when she's ready, and that means so much more to me than affection from a privileged puppy.
Another teacher for this subject: My favorite Taylor Swift song, which is also her most mature:
I'd give you my sunshine, give you my best
But the rain is always gonna come if you're standing with me
She asks repeatedly, "Is it enough?"
Would all this adoration I have to offer be enough...if I could never give you peace?
My first time hearing this song brought tears to my eyes, as I was in a place in life where I was so focused on what I couldn't give.
It brought further tears when I heard producer Aaron Dessner share what the song meant for him to work on: "I have, in my life, suffered from depression and I'm a hard person to be in a relationship with or be married to because I go up and down. And I can't help it—it's a chemical thing that happens sometimes. This song captures the fragility of what that's like to be in a relationship with someone who may or may not have peace."
Since then, I've been caring for that fragile part of myself, who essentially believes I need to be a completely different person in order to be worth someone's commitment. Or, at least, be easier than I am now.
I come back to my therapist's question: What does it mean to be easy? What makes a person effortless to love?
My cat is so easy to love, not because she cuddles (she doesn't) or comes when I call (not a chance) or lets me kiss her on the nose (my greatest dream, never to come true). She's easy to love because she gives what she can, and I consider that small gift to be hugely valuable.
The beginning of this whole life lesson was the realization that I simply may not be cut out to spend hours a day in a hot humid climate. Okay, so I'll have to cross the Miss Hawaiian Tropic Pageant off my list of activities to participate in, but I make up for my limitation in other ways. A city that is challenging for me in the temperature category can be ideal in other categories:
In Miami I got to confidently speak Spanish with euphoric pleasure as though there were diamonds in my mouth. I heard bachata music on the sidewalk and my feet automatically started swerving like tangled ribbons as I vaguely remembered steps from long-ago dance lessons. I couldn't stop laughing with joy when I walked around the beach with my feet half-buried in clumps of sand. And if instructed to go to my "happy place" in the future, I'll think about floating on top of the bath-warm salt water while unidentified birds shielded my face from the evening sun.
I'm too sensitive to stay in the heat for long, and also too sensitive to dismiss the sights and sounds that make this world such a marvel to explore.
A while back, I let my anxiety get the better of me and apologized to my boyfriend for throwing a fit. "I'm sorry for being so annoying," I said, ashamed. He calmed me down and pointed to the pile of cards and letters and drawings I've given him. "Hey, I don't get all of those if you're not highly attuned and sensitive to the world, and to me." He saw my big emotions as a result of the same thing that fuels my more palatable traits: creativity and attention.
This was a beautiful affirmation of what Sunflower continually teaches me: Our most tender, squishy, icky parts make us precious to those who love us most. I believe we intuitively know that the darkest shadows go hand in hand with the brightest lights. The more we get to know someone, the more neuroses and triggers and weather sensitivities we uncover. And the more muck we uncover, the more unique gifts we are privy to.
A phrase I once memorized in Sunday School often comes to mind: the peace that surpasses all understanding. Peace that doesn't make any sense. It's such a generous concept, that we can experience peace that defies logic.
In my most insecure moments when I believe that my sensitivities have finally gone too far, I like to think that I, and Taylor Swift, and Aaron Dessner, and Sunflower, and you, and all the people who love the heat, and all the people who hate the heat, still offer loved ones peace that surpasses all understanding.