humidity

I grew up in the northeast but we spent all of our summers out west. Northern Idaho is pretty dry, at least compared to New York. The hills surrounding the lake would be mottled with shades of green and brown, and beautiful, and the grasses would burn, and we'd sometimes lug buckets of water up the hill to water some of the younger apple trees and later, the flowers Grandma planted every spring at my father's grave.

You got used to it after awhile: the crisp, dry air and evenings cool enough for a campfire and cups of coffee out on the dock watching the early morning sun burn off the mist across the lake.

It was always something of a shock to deplane at LaGuardia or JFK or Westchester County Airport after two months of being at the lake cabin in Idaho. You'd walk out of the airport into that muggy, sticky, sweaty New York air and feel something akin to walking into a brick wall.

This morning, walking up to the bus stop, the air was sticky and humid and warm, and the branches I've been watching since deep winter are losing their stark shapes in cascading bowers of green.  My city's on its way to becoming its summertime jungle self again, and even the air seemed green and pregnant with rain.