The Indignity of Using an Umbrella in the Sun

/

I don’t know if you’ve heard, but it’s been hot lately. Like, obscenely hot.

I’m a Florida native so heat and humidity are as natural to me as a lizard crawling across my toes or a frog hanging out on the wall of my kids’ bedroom, but this year the heat has just been… different. It’s not just Florida. Locations all over the globe have been setting heat records left and right. It’s a real problem that is likely to get even worse in the coming years, but unfortunately, I don’t have time to try to solve the climate crisis right now because I have to worry about what I look like carrying an umbrella when the sun is out.

Yes, now that school is back in session, you can most likely catch sight of me every afternoon at around 2:20 p.m. and then AGAIN at around 4:30 p.m. prancing down the street with a dumb blue umbrella over my head that has at least one or two broken metal rib things so one of the edges droops down like it’s exhausted. To be fair, it probably is exhausted; it’s very hot. The sun is blinding. I work up a full sweat within seconds. Oftentimes, there isn’t a cloud in the sky. I peek out from under the droopy edge of the umbrella every few steps to make sure no one is approaching on foot. No one ever is because it’s too hot to be outside. Every time a car passes, I look away, avoiding eye contact. I live in fear of the day that someone will shout, “You staying dry under there?!?” The person will be hanging out the window of their car and they will look like Biff from Back to the Future.

My oldest child started middle school this year and my second outing of the afternoon is to meet him at the bus stop. Before the bus arrives, I make sure to fold up my stupid umbrella and hold it at my side or kind of behind my back depending on where the middle schoolers are positioned. That way if any of the eighth graders take notice, I can be like, “IT’S IN CASE IT RAINS… YOU KNOW HOW FLORIDA WEATHER IS… VERY UNPREDICTABLE!”

If that doesn’t assuage the cool kids, I’ve printed out a little informative pamphlet that I can hand out. No cool kid can resist an informative pamphlet. It contains the following fun fact that I obtained from a website for a retailer called The Cotton: London:

“The umbrella was invented over 4,000 years ago and used in early civilizations in Egypt, Assyria, Greece, and China. They were initially employed as parasols to provide shade from the sun. The term comes from the Latin root word umbra that means shadow.”

Not even a cool eighth grader wearing jeans and a hoodie in 98-degree heat can argue with the website for some retailer called The Cotton: London!

I might even drop a few pamphlets in the mailboxes of the houses along my walking route. You never know who might be watching from inside their air-conditioned home, without an umbrella, judging me. It’s right there in the Latin root word, people! Shadow. Shadow! Umbrellas evolved from parasols that were used exclusively to protect against the sun. Again, here’s more from The Cotton: London:

“The Chinese invented the first waterproof umbrella as protection from rain when they waxed and lacquered their paper parasol. Umbrellas became a feminine accessory beginning in the 16th century in Europe. The Persian traveler and writer Jonas Hanway changed all that when he publicly used an umbrella in England for 30 years.”

See! Are you really going to make fun of Persian traveler and writer Jonas Hanway who publicly used an umbrella in England for literally 30 years?? I don’t think so. Not even the 6’3” eighth grader from the bus who I’ve heard cusses a lot would dare square up with Jonas Hanway!

The heat is relentless and there is no end in sight. But, no matter how high the temperature goes, I’ll always be cool (not physically because the sunshade honestly doesn’t help much, but in the metaphorical sense of the word). As long as I have my trusty parasol umbrella.

Things I’ve Enjoyed Lately:

  • Shiner by Amy Jo Burns. I love books that take me to places I don’t know anything about, and this novel does just that. Set in the mountains of West Virginia, Shiner is both devastating and beautifully written.

  • Lying on my bed to read instead of sitting on the couch.

  • And Every Morning the Way Home Gets Longer and Longer by Fredrik Backman. This is a novella from one of my very favorite writers about family, aging, and dementia. It’s moving, as Backman’s stories always are, and you can easily read it in one sitting.

  • Eating apple slices with natural peanut butter and honey.

  • One of my favorite Substacks: Jared Bilski’s River People Rebuild.

  • Spending an extra hour with my 11-year-old every morning because middle school starts really late.

  • This piece called Lobster Tale by Lisa Renee and everything she writes on The Long Middle.