WHO HAS SEEN THE THE HUMIDITY

We experience many different weather phenomena here on the north shore. Everything from simple dew to frost, fog, rain, snow, sleet; everything from gentle wafting breezes to gale-force winds. All of them leave some kind of visible "calling card" - only the wind is essentially invisible. Still, we are always aware of its presence, as Christina Rossetti so famously put it:

Who has seen the wind?
Neither you nor I:
But when the trees bow down their heads
The wind is passing by.

So even though it's not a solid thing to be seen, we feel like we actually do see the wind, too. But what about humidity? There is no visible difference between yesterday's oppressive morning and this one, which dawned bright and refreshing. Apparently, no on can see the humidity.

Then I thought about how it felt yesterday, when the humidity was way up there. I don't know what the actual percentage was, but what do numbers matter when the air feels so close it's like someone is literally breathing down your neck, and every other part of you. And people aren't the only ones feeling it. The cats stretched themselves out, being uncharacteristically quiet all day. The new dishtowel I put out felt limp, even though is just came from the dryer, my Bic pen slid differently across the paper, and the ink even looked different, darker, bolder, against the white. And when I didn't like what I'd written, and balled the paper up, it crinkled without making a sound. This morning, the summer humidity is back down to tolerable levels; I could tell that the instant I woke. Over coffee I started thinking about it. It may not be as poetic to think of a limp dishtowel in place of wind-tossed trees, but the evidence of humidity's invisible presence is just as "visible" as that of the wind. But I don't think I want to write a poem about it. And if I did, it would probably be a really cranky, whiny
one. High humidity isn't a thing to wax poetic about around here - just ask Elliott.