Natalie
Hey Bec. Bec, I have a new poet for you. Her name was Hilda Doolittle, and she’s a little less dead than Emily Dickinson. She died in 1961, so she feels very current to me. Anyways, here are the lines that I was so excited to read to you:

O wind, rend open the heat,
cut apart the heat,
rend it to tatters.
Fruit cannot drop
through this thick air—

Rebecca
Ooh, I love it.

Natalie
Right?

Rebecca
And it’s so apropos for our summer series deux.

Natalie
Parte deux. Redux.

Rebecca
Parte deux, about you guessed it…

Natalie
Heat.

Rebecca
Heat.

Can you hear the little scampers in the background? (Is that a word?)

Natalie
No. I think you’ve made it one.

Rebecca
I like to call the little feet pattering ‘scampers’.

Natalie
As in, like, a cat? Or as in our nieces?

Rebecca
As in your nieces, yeah. I just heard a little patter patter patter down the hall, trying to get something from their room, so they wouldn’t bother me — but I’m bothered.

Natalie
You know what, but you could be hot and bothered, Bec, because it is hot, and you did turn off the air conditioning for this specific episode so that there would be no extra noise. So people, we make sacrifices.

Rebecca
We do, and you know what? We better motor this along, because I bumped the air conditioning really high so it would stop. So mom is going to be hot any second (because she’s visiting).

Natalie
Ok, so we’re talking about heat. So we’ve got things to list about heat, right?

Rebecca
Yes. But first, I just want to acknowledge that phrase, “Through this thick air,” from the poem — because that’s such a great line. The alliteration there. The air is thick.

Natalie
Well, yeah. I mean, she really nailed it with that one, and the idea of rending something — as in cutting it in half, to cut the air — it just feels like she really hit that one.

Rebecca
Rending the thick air to tatters. Yeah. This lady knew heat. Maybe she was menopausal. I mean, honestly, that could have been part of her story, and so then I’m all about it.

Rebecca
Right. So it wasn’t even hot outside. It was more she was hot in her body.

Natalie
Could have been. Could have been for sure.

Rebecca
All right. To discuss further in our poetry book club.

Natalie
Yeah.

Rebecca
Ok, but jumping to our summer heat list. First, I also want to say, could we just name each a couple times we’ve been very hot? Feels fun.

Natalie
Oh yes, I could do that. Do you want to start?

Rebecca
Yep. So I remember being so hot living in Riverside, California. It was right in the inland, so there was no water. California, no water, it’s not super awesome.

Natalie
No, it’s no joke.

Rebecca
You need to be by the ocean, if you want to really experience all that is California. So that was a hot year.

Natalie
And you were pregnant.

Rebecca
I was pregnant, yeah, and there were a lot of hot fields to walk through. Mountains, arid mountains.

Natalie
And I remember you describing these hot sidewalk walks, where you’d literally time yourself to get from the shade of one tree to the shade of the next tree, and you knew that there was this path of heat that you had to walk through to get to that shade. So that’s literally how you’d make your way to whatever coffee shop you were heading to. Do you even remember that? I remember either you wrote about it, or you told me, but it’s definitely stuck in my mind.

Rebecca
Yeah, I do remember that. Although it’s funny because there weren’t that many coffee shops. It would have been walking to the Starbucks, for sure. Actually, you know, I still do that on Dundas.

Natalie
But you’ll actually measure, what’s the shade to the shade?

Rebecca
Yeah. Do you not do that on Dundas? It gets so hot in our neighbourhood.

Natalie
I don’t know. I don’t know that I think about it — maybe. Actually, I mean, I’m thinking about heat all the time, but probably I’m just cognizant of consistently trying to find my way to the shade. I’m definitely that person, because for me, I remember being so hot when we were in Mexico. Do you remember there was that trip that our two little families took, and it was so fun, but it was kind of new for me in terms of my issues with my foot. I got really panicky because it was the first time I’d been somewhere where the heat was so humid and thick — like Hilda Doolittle, rend into tatters kind of thick — that I flipped out. I really thought it was all coming back, like I was going to get sick again. I think I made you find antibiotics in your medicine kit that you brought, like random antibiotics that had nothing to do with anything, and I was like, “I’ll take them. I need them. Anything!”

Rebecca
Pause — I had random antibiotics?

Natalie
Yeah, I don’t know about that. Why? But you did, and you probably saved my mental health, just by letting me swallow a pill that we don’t actually know what it was that I ate. But anyways, yes, so my memory of heat in that space definitely shifted a little bit my enjoyment of aspects of that holiday, even though they were wonderful — just because the heat can be so debilitating, especially when my foot swells up like crazy. So now we just know that, so now I think it’s just sort of like resignation. But then, it was new and scary. So what are we doing? We’re reframing the heat, then, a little bit today, right? Because we have to reframe it to be able to function in it.

Rebecca
Yeah. Heat — the enjoyment of heat.

Natalie
Ok, so what are some of the ways that we enjoy it?

Rebecca
Ok, well, number one is I’m thinking that you have a capsule — can you say that word, capsule? A capsule summer wardrobe item. Now you say it. You say it now.

Natalie
Capsule.

Rebecca
Capsule.

Natalie
That’s what I say. It does look like ‘capsule,’ but anyways, I’m going to say capsule.

Rebecca
Capsule summer wardrobe item, in which I declare should be linen shorts.

Natalie
Ok.

Rebecca
Make that one of your items. I was even reading about tailored shorts this summer, as an option to jean shorts — that you can have a more tailored book. Although linen does get really scrunchy, and it can get a bit messy looking.

Natalie
But that’s kind of the look, right. Isn’t it?

Rebecca
I kind of like that, and I also just love the feel of linen. Just an option for jean shorts. Against jean shorts.

Natalie
I like that, although I love your jean shorts — but yes, I think this sounds fun.

Rebecca
I shall have something else.

Natalie
Yeah. For someone who can’t wear shorts, or who chooses not to because of all of my leg issues and my compression sock, I like to hide my foot with long dresses. So my capsule wardrobe option is this wonderful, super airy, almost see-through — if I’m actually going to wear it in public, I need to wear it with a slip, but I kind of don’t even care because it’s so hot. It’s a bathing suit cover-up from Nordstrom. I think I was weeding it when I was at the farm last. If I can just stay in that thing the whole summer, I would be the happiest Natalie ever. Because it’s so airy, it’s breezy, it actually makes the weather feel cooler simply because of the way that the wind blows through it.

Rebecca
But it opens, right? I’m trying to picture it.

Natalie
My long orange one.

Rebecca
Oh yeah, it’s just a dress, really. I associated it as being a dress.

Natalie
Yeah, but it technically is a bathing suit cover-up and technically is see-through — which is why I don’t wear it on Dundas. But I could.

Rebecca
I do like that, and I like that on you. Yeah, that’s a great item. So a capsule item, unless you’d like to call it a ‘capsule’ item, is a beautiful bathing suit cover-up.

Natalie
Qua dress.

Rebecca
Nice. Ok, so summer wardrobe items. Next…

Natalie
Books by Rachel Cusk. Two of them. We’ve got one each, I think. The one that I chose is called Second Place, and the reason why I chose it is because I really feel like in that book heat is mentioned all over the place. There’s this one specific scene — and I’m not giving anything away, I don’t even think that’s how it works with Rachel Cusk, you just get to enjoy all of the lines that just come together. How did I describe it to you before? I think that she writes characters who you are either connected to, or find relatable enough, even if you dislike them, that you’re into them. That was how I felt with the Second Place main character. But there’s this specific scene where she…

Rebecca
Wait, you didn’t like her?

Natalie
The main character?

Rebecca
Yeah.

Natalie
I wouldn’t want to hang out with her.

Rebecca
Right.

Natalie
But I liked her re-storying of everything constantly. Every time she told a story of something she had experienced, I actually said to myself, “It didn’t happen that way.” Every time.

Rebecca
Right. She’s telling herself that it was this way, but I know it was a different way.

Natalie
Yeah. But I kind of appreciated that, because that’s so human. So there’s just something so relatable about the way that I think Cusk’s characters move through their storying. But there’s this one specific scene where it’s a mother and a daughter getting out of taking, basically, a skinny dip in their pond. It just really brought to mind heat — that you could get out, and be that nude (obviously in your own space, nobody’s around). But yeah, there was just something so hot about it. Not hot like, “They were so hot.” I mean, they could have been. But anyways, it was just more the heat buzzing in the air of the reading of that book that I felt. So that’s mine, what about yours?

Rebecca
And yeah, just heat in a rural place — because I think she’s in this isolated part of England, maybe? I was also thinking of her book Outline, which is part of that trilogy. It’s this English woman flying to Athens. It’s her on a plane for the first part of the book, just talking to this Greek man, and he’s telling her about all of his failed marriages — his two failed marriages. Which sounds so boring, but there’s something about Rachel Cusk that is really plotless, but she just gets into the psychology of people in such a way that… I don’t know. It’s very engaging, and I feel really sucked in even though really, you would say there’s nothing happening. It’s just a woman on a plane, talking to a man. Which is so narcissistic or something, and she sees it — so it’s funny.

Natalie
Oh, he is — like, he is the character, is the narcissistic one.

Rebecca
Yeah.

Natalie
Oh, that’s interesting. Because I would say in Second Place, that’s part of what strikes me is the almost narcissism of this woman, but it’s only in her head. I don’t think her actions towards the rest of the world are that, but the storying that’s happening — which maybe that’s the part that feels so relatable, and maybe it’s brought up in the heat of it all, but there’s just something about, you know, your own story is just all you. That’s what happens in our heads.

Rebecca
Yeah, like her own private motivations. Because in Second Place, I think she gives her home…

Natalie
She gives a second house on her property to this artist.

Rebecca
Yeah, which is a generous act.

Natalie
Except she’s doing it for herself, so is it generosity? I don’t know. It goes back to that. Levinassian gift stuff that we’ve talked about in other episodes.

Rebecca
Yes. Ok, so go read some Rachel Cusk.

Natalie
And revel in the psychology of it — and keep your air off when you’re doing it. If you have air conditioning (which I don’t have, so for us, it would just mean turning off a fan), but turn your air off and read it in the heat and see if that does anything different for you.

Rebecca
Right. If your brain closes in, and you just get more connected to her characters.

Natalie
Yeah — either you really relate to them, or they really drive you bonkers — in a good way. I don’t know, maybe there’s something in that. The heat, what it drives us to.

Rebecca
Also, number three is classical music and heat.

Natalie
Yep. We think they’re tired.

Rebecca
What say you, Nat?

Natalie
Well, Frankie has stopped his little piano lessons for the summer, and so it’s just the two of us, and as I just said, our house is not air conditioned. So we have all these breezy ceiling fans, and none of them match, because… well anyways, they just don’t.

Rebecca
And you do have a lot of ceiling fans.

Natalie
A lot.

Rebecca
Your landlord was like, “I’m going to take care of my tenants by putting in many ceiling fans.”

Natalie
Exactly, and none of them quite match each other, but they all do the job. So anyways, if we don’t have the ceiling fan on near where the piano is, Frankie and I can get kind of cranky. So you’ve got to turn that ceiling fan on to be able to play a rather difficult grade two sonata that he is going to be playing the whole summer — because I don’t anticipate we’re going to be moving through this piece anytime soon. But it is so fun when we are just cool enough, and the breeze is just happening enough. We are really enjoying ourselves. I think I told you this the other day — he actually stood up from the piano and walked away from it, and I heard him say to himself, “I am proud of myself.” I thought that was such a win. I don’t think he would have said that had he been scratchy with heat? So I’m going to say thank you to my landlord for those ceiling fans, and for the sonata. I love it.

Rebecca
I was thinking I find it really interesting that Tchaikovsky has this set of 12 short pieces that are all one month of the year. It’s called The Seasons. Elsie just did her grade nine piano this year, and she has learned April and October, but now she’s learning August, and I am going to learn July.

Natalie
Oh my gosh, you guys are doing this summer series, literally.

Rebecca
They’re really fun to listen to, so go listen to The Seasons, Op. 37a by Tchaikovsky (piano solos) and revel in July and August, and maybe you want to listen to June, too — or September.

Natalie
Oh, I’m excited.

Rebecca
Yeah. I think it’s fun, and then I have this dream that we would do a concert for somebody.

Natalie
The two of you.

Rebecca
Alternating. I would play January, she would play February. Wouldn’t that be so…

Natalie
Romantic.

Rebecca
Romantic and sweet — I’m sure it would be none of those things.

Natalie
Or it might be for a moment.

Rebecca
Yeah, we might have some good moments in there, anyway.

Natalie
Oh, I like that.

Rebecca
It’s really funny, ‘cause she did those nails.

Natalie
Yes — for her graduation. Her grade eight graduation.

Rebecca
What do you call them?

Natalie
She got the… oh man, what are they called? We don’t do our nails, generally, so we don’t think of these things.

Rebecca
Veneer, final…

Natalie
Stick-ons. Anyways, they were the thing.

Rebecca
But so when she plays the piano now, they clack.

Natalie
Oh, and she probably likes the sound. I like the sound — I’ve done that once in my whole life.

Rebecca
Nails clacking — really long nails clacking?

Natalie
Yeah. There’s something satisfying. Some of my students would have the really long ones, and they would clack — and they actually liked the sound of the clacking on their phones. So I wish I could get a sound effect for that, to create with some sort of a TikTok video, and I just go, “These are my students.” Anyways, that’s so exciting, though. I can’t wait to actually hear both you and Els play those songs one after the other. That would be very romantic for me as the listener, to get to be a part of that. The summer series on piano, I love it. Ok, so we’ve got that in terms of our music, and then next on our list are some cold foods that we think people should be spending some time with.

Rebecca
And our last item, I think, on our list.

Natalie
This made me think of you, Bec, when I did this, because I have a memory (and tell me if I’m wrong and if I’ve made this up) of you liking creamsicles.

Rebecca
Yeah. I think so.

Natalie
Right? I think when you were younger, that was a thing that you liked. So anyways, I found a recipe for dairy-free creamsicle quote-unquote ‘ice cream’ that I can make with frozen clementines and frozen bananas and then a little bit of plant milk. So I threw that all in the blender, and then I handed it to Frankie, and he was like, “What is this amazingness?” because he had never had a creamsicle before. So now his first exposure to creamsicles are frozen clementines, frozen bananas, and almond milk — and it’s amazing. It tastes exactly like the real deal.

Rebecca
Wow. So it must be the clementines give it a little tartness. So you will obviously make a TikTok about that.

Natalie
Oh yeah. But I need to get more comments, and then I need to freeze them — so it’s a process. But anyways, if you have those things, throw them in the freezer.

Rebecca
So you can’t do it if… the bananas and clementines have to start frozen, otherwise…

Natalie
Yeah. That’s key.

Rebecca
But then aren’t you going to freeze it anyway? Oh, it’s like turning into an ice cream, as opposed to a popsicle. I just kept imagining popsicle — you know, those creamsicles that I…

Natalie
Oh, that’s interesting. Yeah, I didn’t explain myself very well then. This was like me basically making creamsicle in a glass. I should have said that — but as an ice cream, not as a shake.

Rebecca
Right, so he’s using a spoon. All the details, Nat.

Natalie
This is getting very specific, and I need to get better at that. But yes.

Rebecca
I’m extremely detail-oriented, Nat. I like to know the details to really get into it. I was talking to someone yesterday, and they were telling me about their friend, and then I wanted to know all the details, because it just creates a better story.

Natalie
A better picture, too. Because you’re right, you could have ended up with completely a different recipe than what I intended — though it could have been beautiful. So maybe there’s something in that.

Rebecca
Playful experimentation. Ok. My cold food is: I was reading Bon Appétit magazine, randomly, and I found this recipe for a green mango salad. What was interesting is that green mango salad is made from green mangoes — so mangoes that are not ripe. I’ve always thought mangoes are dead to me when they’re not ripe. So I opened it, it’s not ripe, it’s not delicious, what do I do with this now? And then this recipe apparently needs unripe mangoes — tart, hard mangoes. Natalie, is this something you already knew?

Natalie
Yes. But that doesn’t matter.

Rebecca
I can see that even when I sent it to you that it wasn’t the revelation it was for me. I feel like my life has been changed.

Natalie
I’m so happy for you.

Rebecca
So basically, everyone, if you’re just a little slower when it comes to food: you whisk together some lime, a splash of fish sauce, some finely grated garlic (Natalie’s sleeping right now)…

Natalie
No I’m not — I’m totally listening and enjoying this.

Rebecca
And finely grated chili — Thai chili, that’s the only thing. Maybe you have to go to Nations or some store for that. Thai chili, is that easy to get?

Natalie
Yeah, in a lot of… anyways, go ahead. The international food aisle.

Rebecca
Thai chili, brown sugar, you whisk together your sauce, then you toss it with your julienned unripe mango, some shallots…

Natalie
And maybe some red onion, right?

Rebecca
Yep, or shallots, and some chopped peanuts, and cilantro, and mint, and sesame seeds. Ok, so if you have all those things, you can make it, and that will be your amazing summer salad that you will enjoy while listening to Tchaikovsky, while reading Rachel Cusk, while wearing your linen shorts, or your…

Natalie
Or your long summer swimsuit cover-up from Nordstrom.

Rebecca
Yeah. We’ll have to show a picture of that, and how awesome that looks on you — and then exploring Hilda Doolittle, who’s dead but not too dead, as Nat said in one of our takes.

Natalie
I am really liking our series, simply because I’ve enjoyed going through so many of these potentially seemingly disconnected ideas, and yet finding the story that weaves them all together. I love storying with you, Rebecca.

Rebecca
I do too, and I love talking with you, and I love it so much that sometimes I talk right over you — because I just want to get in your mouth.

Natalie
We’re finding our way, Rebecca. A year in. You know, we are coming up to our one-year anniversary of Reframeables.

Rebecca
I know. It’s so exciting.

Natalie
What are we going to do for that? We need some ideas, friends. Anybody who’s listening to this, and has some thoughts on how it is that we can truly celebrate this — we’ve put that out into the universe before, but now it’s getting closer and closer and we actually have to do it.

Rebecca
Maybe we need to bring people together to celebrate with us.

Natalie
Oh, that’d be fun.

Rebecca
Maybe.

Natalie
Ok, these are things to think about. All right. I love you, Bec.

Rebecca
I love you. Go enjoy the heat.

Natalie
I will. Bye.

Rebecca
Hey Reframeables: a little housekeeping. Don’t forget to rate, review, or subscribe wherever you listen to your podcasts if you like what we’re doing here on Reframeables. Your feedback really supports this reframing project of ours. Also, please sign up for our weekly newsletter, which comes with a free delicious recipe from Nat. And we have a new segment for our Patreon subscribers: mini-episodes which we call Life Hacks and Enhancers — our five best things in a week. So check us out over on our Patreon, and consider a donation if these reframing conversations have supported you or someone you know. All the links are in our show notes. Love, Reframeables.