Yesterday the fog returned to Marin County. For many of us, fog is an addiction. We get cranky in the heat, can’t handle the dry, blast furnace from Four Corners. The nastiest heat waves always seem to come from that mysterious spot in the Southwest where New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, and Colorado meet. When high pressure builds in Four Corners, it sets in motion the heat wave from hell.

The heat always brings unwanted riffraff. Tempers flare, fires start, people fight. Heat exposes our weakest link. Our fridge died on Saturday. Gave up the ghost. Now there’s an ice cooler in the kitchen with four drink holders molded into its top. The cooler is new, a welcome addition to the house. I never met anything with a drink holder that I didn’t like.

The cool breeze has brought back my creativity. A new web site is in the works. I’ll take my camera with me for an evening stroll. And I’ve been thinking about a new painting. The only time I’ve ever been creative in the heat is when I’m in Arizona, deep in Grand Canyon. Maybe being close to the source of the heat is the answer. Go right to it and bask in it.

If art is transformative, so is heat. Heat is the catalyst for alchemical processes. So is art. Though I generally feel like a beached, cranky whale in the heat, I recognize that the raw material for expansion is present. If I only I weren’t so damned miserable.