What I'll Do Differently For a Cool Canicule

It's on its way. Good thing I learned all of these helpful lessons.

When I was being wheeled out of the delivery room after giving birth—hospital gown, disheveled hair, leaky everything—I remember doing a quick mental and physical inventory, then saying to myself, “Oh my, I think I’m a little traumatized. I’ll have to deal with that at some point.”

I had the exact same sensation while rolling out of Paris two Fridays ago, away from another 104F+ day, towards a beach, any beach that promised a livable temperature. As the cool of the train AC hit, I paused and assessed how I was doing: a lot worse than I had realized, and more than a little traumatized by that epic heatwave.

Whatever you’re reading in the news, it was that bad and worse. Like, “Kim, there’s people that are dying.” Even with the portable AC unit, even while drinking water and sitting in shade and misting myself as the government keeps reminding us to do, this shit was relentless, uncomfortable, and as the numbers have shown, dangerous.

Have your eyebrows ever been hot? I’ve never even felt my eyebrows before, but they were singeing during the short walk to the grocery store. I’m pretty sure my bike tires were getting sticky, which is good for F1 but not for the creche run.

Walking on the shady side of the street to run errands, I kept wondering why we weren’t protesting. Why weren’t my neighbors rising up in the streets against this torture? But, protest against what, and against whom? How should we direct our wrath? The men who got us into this mess with their fossil fuels and data centers and combustion engines? Taylor Swift and her MF-ing jet? Capitalism? Or maybe protesting our leaders for their inaction in taking measures to address the symptoms of climate change?

I’m mad that the world is on fire, and I’m also mad that not enough people in power seem to understand that we need common-sense infrastructure that addresses the realities of climate change, so that citizens aren’t dying on principle. Shutters and misters in extreme heat are like cardigans and slippers in snow; useless and kind of pathetic. I’m tired of politicians pretending that closing schools a half hour early is helping anyone survive this heat.

Okay, pardon the rant. But I needed to get that out there to set the stage for the LeArNiNgS. Ah, learnings; the silver lining of any struggle, even a dumb struggle we shouldn’t have to be struggling in the first place.

When I gave birth and wasn’t the biggest fan of my birth story, I reflected on what I would do differently and what I could have done better to have the delivery I wanted. I am now reflecting on the canicule, what worked for me and what didn’t. How could I do it better the next time around, knowing what I know now? Unlike giving birth, I don’t have much choice about whether or not I’ll be going through a canicule again. In fact, it looks like another one is locked and loaded. Hold on to your butts.

Here’s what I’m thinking might help my household to ride out the next wave of heat.

Bake cookies for everyone I know who doesn’t live in Paris: The only way I was able to make it through this recent canicule with low spirits instead of impaired health was because I was lucky enough to get out on the weekend, twice, thanks to the kindness of a few friends who have houses elsewhere. So why the cookies? I need to stay in the good graces of everyone who lives outside the city so that they’ll keep making those invitations to us. Especially because we are guests who come with baggage in the form of a highly charismatic but talkative toddler who eats as much as an adult, so being invited is no small feat. Baking feels vulgar at this junction, so maybe I’ll just invite them to a mostly raw dinner instead. Small cost, given what they saved us from.

Say no to long flowy dresses: You might think this is the move, especially since so many women on the street look so chic in their long floral dresses and espadrilles. But long dresses are the equivalent of giant tents over your heat-generating parts. The result is constant swamp. I had to tie my long yet light dress up to the side to get some air on my legs, which were overheating as I sat on a shaded terrace.

No metro: Before I knew that overheated metros were failing across town, I made a gamble on the most effective way to get my child home from creche, and I lost big. While biking is faster and more reliable, the metro is slightly cooler, passive, and less sunny. So I chose the metro. The metro overheated and shut down with us inside. I couldn’t make my toddler walk the rest of the way home when it was about 100F out, nor could I carry him all that way in said heat. The bus was too full, and completely unairconditioned. So yeah, no more metro in the heat.

Keep Bike Rides Short: If the metro is off the table, biking is the way to go. I learned last canicule that there is a sweet spot where biking is effective, before the sun exposure and energy expenditure actually begin to have diminishing returns. I think that threshold is 12 minutes. After 12 minutes, the ride is no longer refreshing or endurable; instead, it becomes another form of dangerous heat torture that is unwise to subject yourself to.

Hold Still: So if I’m saying no metro, barely any bike, and walking is a self-explanatory no, what am I saying? I’m saying hold as still as possible, doing as little as possible. It’s free! It works! It’s available to everyone!

Swap wine for pastis: My chosen drink when it’s hot as balls, pastis comes with water and ice cubes, costs almost nothing, and for some reason makes the heat feel festive. No, I’m not sweating all over a cafe table at my local bar, I’m pretending I’m day drinking and bronzing myself in Marseille. Author's note: completely ignore this particular learning and drink only water during the canicule.

Don’t look at municipal social media too much: I follow the mairie of the 12th arrondissement, Paris Centre, the official Paris Ville accounts, etc. so I can stay informed about our city. Reading their posts during a canicule was the most crazy-making part of the week. They post well-intentioned reminders to keep cool by having some water, finding shade, or thinking about the idea of ice cubes, as if anyone needed to be told that. They mean well, but something about seeing how little they can do with their misters and too-full cooling centers depresses the hell out of me.

Just use the AC: Knowing the French outlook on AC, knowing that our home faces into a shared courtyard, I was extremely reticent to use our portable AC unit. I genuinely didn’t want to bother anyone with the noise of the hot air being evacuated, and I also didn’t want to be perceived as a climate killer. I’d do the responsible thing and only use it to cool down the upstairs bedrooms starting at 18:00, but I’d do so feeling awful about it the whole time. Next round, I might keep that routine, but just let her rip with abandon when I do so. If it’s on, it’s on; feeling nervous and guilty isn’t going to save my soul.

Stop treating ice cream like a solution: It’s cataclysmically hot, so the brain and heart both rationalize ice cream as being helpful in cooling down and warranted by our ongoing suffering. If these heat waves climate crisis events continue at this rate, that type of ice cream logic is going to have some big consequences.

Stand in the meat aisle: The only time I felt good last week was when I took an extended spin in the meat aisle of my nearby grocery store. I was considering two different packages of steak hache, then, all of a sudden, I noticed that I was cool for the first time in days. Vegetarians: there’s always the cheese/yogurt aisle for you. Vegans: I’m sorry for your struggle.

Don’t be too productive: The two best days of the canicule were ones I spent holding still inside, avoiding errands at all costs. No groceries, no social calls, no cooking. Just TV and computer work, until my hands got too hot to type. Both days, I felt pretty good until I absolutely had to pick my child up or something awful like that.

Get a bucket: We have a bucket, more like a basin, that is used for non-cleaning purposes. It served as part of a water table for my son, who was excavating frozen animals from ice that his clever mom had prepared. It was also an ice bath for the day that the living room rug felt too hot to stand on. I guarantee you at least 30 solid minutes of happiness if you get yourself a bucket.

Romantacize it: Whenever I have to do something in Paris that sucks, I try to figure out a way to romanticize it instead of dread it. Long rainy nounou drop-offs with a baby, prefecture lines, almost getting hit by a motorcyclist; all of these things can be spun into adventures that are part of the amazing life I’m building. So there’s gotta be a way to do the same with the canicules.

Maybe it’s by remembering the beauty of the shared trauma that is bonding all of Paris together in solidarity. Or maybe I can feel grateful for earning true empathy for how a poulet roti feels when I walk outside and begin to feel my organs and skin rise to unsafe temperatures. Maybe it’s a newfound appreciation for the only moderate discomfort of a 32C degree day. Or being thankful that the canicule has bronzed my skin and multiplied my herb garden beautifully.

The way I did end up romanticizing this one was by re-re-re-re-rewatching True Detective season 1, whose scenes of dry, dusty lethargy helped make my sweaty living room feel poetic.

If leaning into it doesn’t help, I’d recommend complaining. That seemed to help do the trick last time.

If you’re here in France, best of luck to you and your family. Stay cool.

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