Microclimates

Apparently I'm not around women often enough. The occasional weekend brunch and my book group aside, there's an estrogen deficit in my life, and being suddenly subjected to 1000 women in one place, all emotional and unstable — as is our wont — caused my own emotions to fly off the handle.

Or perhaps it was the full moon. Or microclimates.

Before J and I packed our bags, we checked the weather.

"I'm getting highs of 64."

"Really? This says 77."

Our first morning in the hotel, the same diverging temperatures. We compared notes — the zip code he was using was five blocks north of our hotel.

"How can it be ten degrees warmer five blocks north of here?"

The first moment I had to myself, I turned left out of the hotel and climbed. I felt like I might be able to reach forward and touch the sidewalk ahead of me, fearing my knees had suddenly aged sixty years in five minutes. And at the corner of Pine and Mason, I took off my jacket, loosened my scarf, stood still in the sun. And it was, indeed, ten degrees warmer.

The microclimates of San Francisco at work. And so I had found my metaphor.

Here among these women, I felt warmer still than I had moments before, out on my own in the back alleys of Chinatown. Little microclimates of people, all of us sharing a common interest, but writing our different stories. Those who were happy, those who had lived, those who seemed to be still living. Those of us who couldn't stop laughing. Big goofs, all of us. Feeding Roombas and giggling over mixed drinks. Finding the loops in strings tied to keys. Calming each other's nerves before we had to face the crowds. Moaning at the sight of doughnuts.

I wasn't going to write about this at all. I thought I could bury my emotions from this weekend in this prosaic musing on microclimates, shoveling dirt over the excitement by stitching together an anecdote of how at a different altitude, the weep suddenly sets in at the airport ticketing counter.

But I have to write about it. I met some amazing women, and learned something new from all of them. How not to fear showing the OH MY GOD YOU GUYS side of me. How to laugh at myself. How to give the perfect high five. How if you get the right roomful of people, everyone will dance to "Blister In The Sun," just like we did back in high school.

How you can read as many books as your heart desires, you can find comfort in other people's stories, but you can never, ever replace the feeling of being part of a story in the making. And how a thousand storytellers in one place means a thousand stories.

You can see why I got weepy.

It wasn't until I was flying through the air, sandwiched between J and a lovely man in a cowboy hat with a loud voice and teeth like a country music star, that I was able to bring those estrogen levels back down again, calm enough to watch the thunderstorms from above.

And wouldn't that be a better metaphor anyhow.

© Zan McQuade. All rights reserved.