Hello Humidity!

I recently had the opportunity to revisit Houston, where I spent two years in graduate school, from 1998-2000. It was my first time back since graduation, and I anticipated the event with a mix of dread and tentative excitement. I knew that I would encounter some old, somewhat painful memories of an awkward time in life full of youthful emotions, while simultaneously remembering the places and rituals that were so formative and which made my experience bearable.

I grew up in the Northeast and continue to identify myself as a New Englander despite the fact that I've spent more than a decade living elsewhere, primarily all over the midwest. And for two of those years I lived in a tony neighborhood in the humid, hot sprawl of Houston, Texas. I remember hating it at first. The labyrinthine highways which swallow you upon exiting the airport, the wide, unfriendly streets dotted with all kinds of billboards for every commercial establishment under the sun, the pervasive and complete culture of the car without a pedestrian in sight. And the weather -- oh the weather. The sudden, brief torrents of rain and the unrelenting, bright sun with thick, soupy humidity. I was not surprised to find this upon returning.

But this time the drive from the airport was pleasant. How personal memories can color one's perceptions, how biased I am by my own nostalgia! Or perhaps I was seeing the city for the first time with adult eyes, eyes that are less oblivious to the world at large, eyes that can absorb the contradictions of squalor and wealth and the social divides which the population of whites and immigrant latinos present at every public establishment. The massive concrete highways, which rise up from the horizon with legs and arms twisting in every direction, seemed almost welcoming, as if they remembered me and were inviting me into their comfortable grasp. The heat felt relaxing and everything, including traffic, slowed.

These were some initial reactions. There were others, such as when I drove in search of my first apartment building, a little brick place with a garden courtyard, where I used to greet the long, black tail of the neighbour's cat as it snaked through the tall hedges every morning and evening. Imagine my horror when I saw the place completely vanished, replaced with a massive, monolithic, tawdry luxury apartment "villa."