It's Warm

There are moments in the middle of the summer when you can hear your body perspire. At night, when the sun has gone down, the atmosphere is supposed to release the excess heat so that in the morning we awake to cool and refreshing air. Yet, from late July to mid-August, Utahns can count on a few days where you will wake up and wonder whether the sun had ever gone down. This claim may seem silly but, there remains no room for doubt when you wake up and have to peel your sheets off of your body, leaving a sweat-stained silhouette on what might someday become an infamous shroud. 

The first sign that it is going to be one of those nights has to be the pillow flip. Normally the purpose of the pillow is to provide that perfect blend of comfort and support to facilitate drifting off to sleep and quiet rest. But on those warm summer evenings when your head hits the pillow, you can feel the heat trapped between your cheek and the material. It only takes minutes for the pillow to assume the role of a hot pad, except no one ever puts a hot pad on their cheek while they are trying to get to sleep. 

Because we think ourselves clever we conceive various strategies to trick our bodies into thinking that it is cooler than it is. We might begin by turning on a ceiling or floor fan to get the air moving and create the sensation of a cooling room. This might work, but because the air is so warm you just end up getting out of bed to apply lip balm to your now chapping lips. Since you're now out of bed you might go to the bathroom and grab a washcloth. Running the cool water you wet the washcloth and wring it out believing that if your facial temperature falls into a normal range your brain might convince the rest of your body to fall asleep. In reality you end up getting a flag waving work out because you have to wave the cloth every 30 or 40 seconds just to keep it cool. 

When all else has failed, you go to the ultimate weapon in the body cooling arsenal, you fill up the tub with cool water and attempt to reduce your body temperature just long enough to actually fall asleep or at least discover unconsciousness. Getting into the cold water does feel refreshing, but this step actually awakens the senses and you suddenly realize that you are now even further away from sleep. As you get out of the tub you barely have to towel off as the water evaporates almost immediately as your body emerges from the water. There are many who will never know the meaning of a hot summer night. They are those overprotected folks who enjoy constant air-conditioned temperatures and they will never know the primal creativity of heat inspired insomnia.