The heat 
Strangely nostalgic
Reminds me of childhood summers 
Dripping icy poles
Lemonade sticky on the pavement
Memories of going to school
In the height of summer
No hat, no play
Between 11 and 3 stay under a tree
Sunscreen on the teacher's desk
Later. New year's eve. Sitting by the harbour in the shade and still turning the shade of cooked lobster.
Aloe vera in the fridge

The intense HOT
Like living in an oven
I expect the air to explode at any moment
Wait for the air to be thick and hazy red with smoke
To see small delicate wispy ash float through the air
Evidence of burning somethings in the near distance

Abuela burning strawberry oil
To mask the smokey smell
Years later
The same oil
Giving me nightmares
Of fleeing
Of homes being burnt to the ground
Of the world I know being reduced to 
Hazy hot red

But in Connecticut
It's just hot
I'm promised that forest fires are rare here
It rains too often for the world to combust
Every 4th July
I watch the bonfire
And nervously trace glowing embers
Dancing in the air
And pray they won't set the trees alight

Summers in Australia
Mean total fire bans
Because raging bush fires
Destroy entire communities
My year 8 teacher lost everything
Except the clothes on his back
And I always wondered
How does one start from scratch

But like 
Phoenix rising
The heat rejuvinates
Replenishes
The Australian bush
Designed to explode
In order for new growth 

I thrive in the heat
Cold makes me shrivel
Shake
And feel down
In the heat
I feel expansive
Free
Shorts, singlets, and flip flops 
("Thongs" where I come from
Five American summers have drilled 
The colloquialism from my head) 
Walking and working in the heat
Is tiring
And wonderful

The end. 

You slog uphill
Drill notes
Please memorize
Count
Project! 
Energize to the end of the line
Trying to get a long and tricky piece together
With limited rehearsal
And you think it could never come together
Was it this hard last year?
You just about give up
And then suddenly
"Suddenly"
The day before the show
There it is!
Harmonies rich and full
Soaring and lovely

And before you even realize it
The performance is over
And the relief
The weight off your shoulders
The view of
The shining happy faces of kids who have felt the spotlight
Known what it is to rehearse
And stand before other people
And sing/dance/act/play
(Often at the same time!)
Is worth
The uphill climb it took
To get there

The end.

Year 5 or year 6
At school we learnt to play the recorder 
I loved learning an instrument
Loved learning to read music
Teaching myself out of a book
The logic of it making sense
The order of dots and lines
A kind of reading that translated into something heard
I wanted to play a “proper” instrument
Aware that the other kids had lessons
And instruments 

Later, year 8. 
Our music teacher took us into a room
Filled with instruments
Choose one 
She said 
I wasn’t drawn to percussion
Or strings 
(My sister had played violin
Popcorn and candy
The learnt sounds of experts
Betraying the difficulty of starting out) 

I could make a noise 
On all the wind instruments
I was worried about the reed instruments
They would require ongoing purchases 
You needed to prepare the reed so it didn’t crack
I felt it was a level of difficulty beyond me
But really
I chose the flute
Because it was the lightest instrument
Back then
I commuted to school
By bus and train
And was worried about schleping my instrument to school
Or being able to practise at home 
I hired the flute for six months 
Or a year
The way time and space merge
Become blurred in memory 
Then I moved schools
And my friend who also played the flute
Recommended her teacher 

And suddenly 
Some fourteen or fifteen years later 
I’m standing with three other flautists
And we’re playing a quartet 
Written by one of the players
And it feels strange 
And lovely
To be part of this
Shared knowledge
Understanding how the dots on the page
Correlate to the placement of fingertips 
To create synchronized sound
Started in another lifetime 

The end.