The weather is still ghastly. I was out on the deck to fill the bird feeders and, despite a small breeze, the air was thick and heavy with moisture. I have to water the deck plants every day or they wilt and look untended as if for a long time. Gracie rings the bells, goes out, sniffs the air then wants back inside. I have learned to stand and wait for her.

When I was a kid, I feared nothing except that guy with the hook my father told us about. Any scratch on the window pane or the screen sent me frantically looking for a hiding place before the hook man worked his way inside the house. I don’t know how old I was before I realized the hook man wasn’t real. He was the main character in a story concocted, I thought, by my father. Much later I found out it was not my father’s story but was an urban myth.

It is much easier living without when you have no idea what you’re missing. When I was in Ghana, the only electrical appliances I had were a fridge and a cassette player. I realized I didn’t need gadgets. Turn the clock ahead to now, and I live in a house filled with gadgets. Some are essential, like the stove, while others, like my iPod, give life dimension. The rest could be replaced by two hands working. My electric can opener died so I now use the old silver one you wind around the top of the can. I just have to be careful not to cut my fingers or have the top fall into the can. I do some chopping by hand, and I sweep the kitchen floor, but mostly I use machines. They have become part of my life again.

I hope to go back to Ghana next year. When I do, I’ll sleep in an air-conditioned room. I don’t think I could sleep without it in the heat. I’ll rent a car with air-conditioning. I think I’ve already paid my dues riding in cramped lorries for hours and hours at a time way back when. As for the rest, it will be as it was. I’ll shop in the market in the coolest part of the day, the morning, but it will still be hot. I’ll use a hole in the ground if I have to. I still have skills. I’ll chop and mash food. I’ll survive without all the gadgets. I still remember how.