My Daughter Summer

Isn’t this the saddest little flower you’ve ever seen? Kind of reflects my inner life when I think about what day it is. The last day of August. The last day. Indian summer officially starts tomorrow, and frankly it feels like it has started today. I’m on the back porch in a sweater because the breeze is a little chilly. The light golden and the sun more tentatively warm than full on hot. I wish I were filled with breathless excitement over the new season about to come upon me. Admittedly, autumn is sweet here, lovely sunny warm days with a subtext of coolness; fog in the mornings and crisp nights. We do get snow in late October and fourteen years ago we had over three feet of snow in late September. It was freakishly early so we were all in our shorts and sweat shirts by the next week. I have absolutely no romantic memories of that storm because it was Hell when it happened; the snow was so heavy it blew up the electric transformers in our end of Stepford Knolls and we didn’t have power for four days; which was especially fun with a six year old and a two year old. No school for the oldest, the school was in the ‘hood and without power as well. Looking back, I’m not sure how I entertained the little monsters dears. I know I used a ton of babysitting co-op hours so they could hang at friends’ houses that did have power and they spent a lot of time bundled up, playing in the snow. I didn’t go as far as David Sedaris’ mother who locked her kids outside and watched them from the warm kitchen while drinking from a coffee mug of gin. My kitchen wasn’t warm and I’m pretty sure we didn’t have any gin so that plan wasn’t viable at my house. I did weep at the kitchen table because I was losing hundreds of dollars of groceries we could ill afford to lose that fall.

And the first snow always comes as such a terrible surprise. Like I’ve just discovered I live in a climate where it stands every chance of snowing from October until May. Always, without fail, I am all “WTF???” when snow is predicted. In fact, my reaction to snow is more predictable than actually getting snow. I’m never prepared, don’t know where my boots are or gloves…the Beav and Wally don’t have coats that fit them properly so I’m one of those Anti-Uber Moms at the store snatching up jackets while my kids are shivering in the car or at home waiting for me to return with their jackets so they can leave the house. Last year, if you recall, I was the wild-eyed lady who almost crashed her car getting to the tire store on October 28th when we had our first big snow. God was looking out after me because the tires came in under budget and I didn’t kill anyone on the way to the tire store. That sort of blessing bears remembering.

This fall, I have promised myself to just Woman up and have the gloves, hats, boots and jackets ready for winter before she knocks me down like a playground bully. In the meantime, today I will be cutting flowers and deadheading the spent blossoms, beating down weeds and fretting over still green tomatoes. I’ve also scheduled in a session of reading in the sun gather the last bits of Vitamin D before I become like Persephone and pine for my lost daughter and favorite child named Summer.

Victus Obscurum

mmmm salty goodness found here

I realized yesterday I might have an eating disorder when I found myself in the basement huddled over a bag of potato chips I had uncovered from its hiding place. When I’m feeling snackish it is necessary for me to sneak downstairs and nosh in secret being mindful of loud crunchy noises and keeping an eye out on the door for interlopers. I will even lie to the offspring if they ask me: “Do we have anymore chips and salsa? “ I bat my eyelashes and look at them dead in the eye shaking my head as I’m picturing the bag of chips and cans of salsa. My hiding places depend upon my sons’ inherited Male Pattern Blindness and so I put ice cream and sorbet behind the frozen vegetables and snack food behind boring things like large boxes of healthy cereal. But I must confess this sneaking around makes me feel weird like I’m some sort of food obsessed woman who isn’t “allowed” to eat snacks because I’ll throw them up after eating two bags of chips and two boxes of cookies in one sitting; or my BMI is 50% and I was told to lose weight or die. Luckily the idea of barfing makes me a little urpy and I‘m keeping my BMI well below 50%. Over eating and bulimia aren‘t the disorders I suffer. My eating disorders are Wally and Beav and if I didn’t hide the chips, cookies and ice cream I would never have the luxury of even getting to make unhealthy food choices.

Hmmm…maybe I should liberate the chips and sorbet from captivity to help nudge off my spare ten pounds. I bet my snacks would be gone within two hours after I left them out in the open. The only thing left would be the empty packages, a few crumbs on the floor and dirty spoons in the sink. The poor dears have those gross and fine motor skill deficits that cause a person to have an inability to throw empty packages away or put dirty dishes in the dishwasher. I probably should have them seen by a physical therapist for this, huh. Oh well their disability will just make them stronger.

Is there SSI for this sort of thing?

Firsts

The last three days have been filled with a few firsts and revisits. Me, Wally and Beav took a trip to SW Colorado just for the hell of it. I did absolutely no forward planning except for booking a hotel res and glancing at a map. Usually I have a plan months in advance. Restaurants that appeal to me, sites I want to see. Everything is thought of just in case. Just in case what I'm not sure. I always have an obsessively constructed packing list, too. Not this time. Nope. And yeah I forgot stuff: ipod charger and hair dryer, notebook and reading materials but really I managed. I bore the cross of not drying my hair or having the ipod to entertain me. I even survived without a book or anotebook. I did remember the computer so I could write.
Since I moved to Colorado in 1987 I've been to the SW edge of the state once and that was a quick trip to a wedding in the mountains. So Durango was like a new town for me. I'm a little ashamed I haven't bothered with the mountains in about five years. Sad isn't it? I've been half way across the globe but haven't taken a forty mile trip to the west into the foothills. Surprise surprise it's pretty just outside of my town! Who knew! And there is river rafting close to home and hiking too. But I had to plan a trip 350 miles away for river rafting and hiking. I text messaged the girl about two hours into our trip and gushed all over the place about how she and I plus dog should go to the mountains for the day some weekend.

Speaking of river rafting. I went rafting in early June 1987 on the Colorado River. It wasn’t mellow water and it wasn’t fun. I was terrified and had the mantra of "rock head rock head rock head" going through my mind the entire time. It didn't help that our guide plus all the riders except me were either drunk or high or both. Good times. Good times. So whenever I meet people for the first time and they ask if I camp or enjoy river sports I look at them like they have grown an extra head, clutch imaginary pearls around my neck and screech, NO!

We took a short float trip Monday morning and it was a blast. Mind you, it's late in the season and the Animas River was "mellow" but it was just a hoot and a half to be out on the water and swim a little, too. I think I'll go again but maybe earlier in the season when the water is a little more exciting. It helped to have a completely sober guide and sober raft mates. The guide laughed when I told him about my experience and knew exactly what I was talking about. River Rats are known for their party attitudes.

After our float trip we drove up the hill and took a hike. Five miles in five miles out. That's ten miles, a one and a zero. That’s a lot for me, too. The last time I hiked--aside from a two mile dog walk--Y2K. I attempted a fourteener and lost my lunch, breakfast, dinner and god knows what else once we were at 13k. I assumed it was just the altitude and thought I couldn't tolerate it. Turns out it was probably the altitude plus the vicodan I had been taking post oral surgery. The cigarettes didn’t help at 13K either. As I got older and continued to smoke I was terrified of having a heart attack on the side of a hill. But whaddya know, my pulmonary health must be restored because despite being winded from walking from 8000 to 9000 feet my heart didn‘t skip beats, an elephant didn‘t sit on my chest and I didn‘t die. The hike we took was my favorite kind of hike: varied terrain that goes in and out of conifer forest, aspen groves and alpine meadows. I love alpine meadows. I could just lie down and nap in an alpine meadow. In fact, I think doing just that should be on the bucket list. Luckily, I was able to walk this morning and on our way home we stopped at a couple of trail heads along Wolf Creek pass and hiked a half mile up to a lovely water fall and then stopped at another trail head near the top of the continental divide. We hiked maybe a mile in and discovered we were at the crest of the ski area and found a field of strawberries that were just starting to ripen. I left a few for the bears but not many.


Further down the road, I made friends with a genuine yard cow!! We switched drivers in the San Luis Valley and stopped at a local milk/cheese farm store. We turned into the drive way and there she was tethered to the fence in the front yard. Cleo was prettiest little fawn colored cow in the world. She was gentle, too. My life is now really complete because I made friends with a yard cow. What a summer! Elephants and a cow! Does life get any better than this?

I didn't barf riding shotgun over Wolf Creek pass like I did twenty years ago. Beav drove it too. Too bad about the upholstery over the passenger window where the OMG straps should have been. He was pretty impressed with himself when we went back over it today and he was the passenger reaching for the OMG strap. There were a couple of times I had my own eyes closed this afternoon as we made those hairpin turns.

The most amazing first! The sons didn't argue with one another one. Single. Time. No one acted like an asshat. Not even me! No one whined or complained! Not even me!! And I can always find something to whine about. This is a first for us. How sweet, everyone's all grown up now. Gone are the days of knocking each other's teeth out and being confined to separate corners of a station wagon.

Luft Balloon

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Yesterday I was laying in the sun and happened to look up into the flawless blue sky and noticed a white balloon shimmering many feet above. The irredescent white balloon was moving quickly , dancing in the cross breezes with a glittery silver string dangling beneath it. I wondered how small I must have appeared from that distance above the earth and I contemplated what it must feel like to float and fly above the Earth at such a great distance. For the millionth time, I wished I could fly. Just raise myself off the ground floating and swooping with my arms to my sides or out like wings. When I was a child I would have dreams of flying like this and in one particular dream I was flying over the playground propelling myself faster or slower at will, turning somersaults and flips as I went along. The feeling of absolute freedom is still with me when I recall that dream.

A book I cherished when I was that age also came to mind: The Wednesday Witch. A little girl found a tiny witch in her doll house and the witch would come to life on Wednesday's, taking the girl on adventures. One such adventure included riding a cannister vacuum high in the night sky over the girl's neighborhood and across her city. It was an enchanting fantasy for me and the creepy factor of finding a doll that would come alive and kidnap a child never occurred to me until yesterday.

I remember twirlling round and round and falling to the ground, eyes closed for a few seconds to continue the sensation of spinning so I could imagine I was actually flying through the air. My favorite time to do this was night because I wanted to open my eyes and be amongst the stars. It was always greatly disappointing to be bound by stubborn gravity. My next attempt at flying was the whole mind over matter thing. I must have read about Yogi's levitating or some such thing because I spent time willing myself to levitate just a little above the ground. Flying would have been great but I would have been satisfied with hovering a bit over the ground but that even proved more than my brain could muster. Just for the lark of it, I gave it another try yesterday afternoon, closing my eyes and freeing my mind hoping I would feel the weight of the earth drop away from me as I floated up and away from the yard and into the sky so I could grab the balloon and bring it back to earth with me when I was tired of flying. A souvenir of my adventure.

I imagine the visage of a flying middle-aged woman clad only in a bathing suit wouldn't have been as charming a picture as an eight year old on the back of a canister vacuum. Lucky thing I stayed on the ground.

Happiness Is

Today is one of those perfect days. The sun is out and it isn’t super hot like it has been so the dark clouds around us might yield rain, something we haven’t had in a week or so. My water bill and my vegetables will be most appreciative. Whenever I’m finished working in the yard, I always reward myself with flower arrangements. It feels completely decadent to have a house full of cut flowers. My perennial garden is amazing and we are blessed with monarch butterflies as well as honeybees. There is a working farm nearby and I wonder if they are keeping bees which would rock to find local honey. A few weeks ago, we were discussing the lovely alchemy of keeping bees and wouldn’t it be an interesting thing to do. Deadly in her case because she’s very allergic, but in theory it would be so very Zen. Handling bees you must absolutely be in the moment. I have a hard time being in the moment so tasks and jobs feel mysterious and sacred to me. Bees and butterflies are two signs of a healthy garden. I’m not sure I could stand the bliss if I had frogs, too. Poor frogs are dying off all over the world. We did see huge frogs at Angkor Wat in the reflecting pool and heard them at night and in the early morning at our hotel outside of the city.

Tending the garden, yard and flowers never fails to make me smile; even when it’s hot dry and dusty. This year’s beds aren’t as lush and varied as last year’s when we had a wet and temperate summer. But I am a little concerned about the front flower bed, everything bloomed way too early and is now dormant. I’m wrestling with setting more things out, annuals and such. I do have zinnias (the most cheerful flower, according to Oldest Friend) which will bloom in a week or so but otherwise the terraced bed looks a little woebegone and sad. Even the 4 O’Clocks are being stubborn and refusing to grow and bloom. Much to be joyful about today despite my worries.

My step-mother’s granddaughter (my--what--step-niece?) is an amazing artist and keeps a lovely blog, today she listed pictures of things that make her happy. This being a perfect day it was easy to find things that make me happy. Here are eleven (I like prime numbers) as they occurred to me.


Summer days when it’s not blazing hot, dry and windy so the back porch is “Command Central”


My flowers

The Girl is making chicken and polenta for dinner tonight and C from next door is coming over, maybe with her new beau who isn’t terribly handsome but he adores her and thinks she is the most amazing woman on the planet.

My Oil d’Provence (an infusion of my own herbs d’Provence in olive oil) was a huge success.

Tending the vegetable garden and worrying over the delicate tomato plants which were set out a little late and on a very hot day. Finding big sweet carrots, sweet peas, three habanera peppers, four cucumber blossoms and the golden beets which will be ready any day now. I’m boiling them and serving them on their greens cold with a pungent blue cheese and pine nuts. I. Can’t. Wait. I have fantasized about this beet salad for a year.

Getting to spend the whole day with TG.

Honey bees.

Butterflies.

The dog hasn’t turned over the trash can or escaped from the backyard today.

Wally let me take a picture of him.

"There Is Never Enough Time To Do All The Nothing You Want"

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“What I heard then was the melody of children at play.” Nabokov

I love summer. Lovelovelovelove Summer. I love how the sun comes up around five and it isn’t dark until nine at night. I like the sound of the cicadas. I remember the crickets and frogs from Texas, a sound rare here. The trees are lush and green; flowers are in full bloom and it is blissfully hot. Everything looks healthy and robust. I like the way wind sounds as it brushes the cottonwood leaves. It’s my favorite time of the year and yet only lasts twelve short weeks. Last summer I discovered rising early every summer day away from the hospital allowed me time to accomplish more “nothing”. Too bad this summer is the exception. Not only am I accomplishing absolutely nothing but I’m sleeping in like a teenager. I did manage to knock back the weeds, deadhead the flowers and plant a few more things after we returned from our vacation. But that was with help and only because the yard, garden and flowerbeds were in rough shape after two weeks of neglect. But suddenly, I’m seized with a complete lack of interest in doing anything other than lying in the sun on the lounge chair and reading. Mind you last summer I did this, too but only after my chores and projects were accomplished. My summer work ethic has flown far far away. I hope it’s landed and someone is putting it to good use.

I think my generation is the second generation to enjoy summer, free of gritty hard work. I grew up in the suburbs so it wasn‘t like I had to work on a farm, either. Always the suburbs, the halcyon place of comfort and ease. Especially during the summer: no school, a few chores and plenty of time to wander the wild spaces just on the other side of the fence or swim in the local pool, cruise the neighborhood on my bike, or lounge around the boat dock. The only thing I had to worry about was going to the swimming pool, getting a ride to the library, which trashy reruns was I going to watch and if I was eating dinner at my friend’s house or my house. My father’s generation worked from a young age, either odd jobs in town or on the farm. When I am sentimental about my childhood it is summer I remember. Not winter, spring or back-to-school autumns. Playing hide and seek in the Big Thicket just on the other side of our yard in SE Texas; when it was safe to let your seven year old out of your line of sight, untethered by a cell phone with GPS, barefooted no less. My child’s memory thinks we wandered miles from home but if I were to return to this place I would find it much more compact and nearby. That is, if it were there to explore. The Big Thicket is almost completely gone except for a few acres the Indians managed to hold away from the developers. That wild space in summer taught me the names of flowers and that I must be immune from poison ivy and oak because it was rampant in the piney woods. I stopped wandering around barefooted after a snake bite (in our front yard) when I was eight. But it’s still an act of God’s grace in action OF (oldest friend) and I didn’t turn over a rock and awaken a dozing rattle snake in New Mexico. Blessed be, not even a scorpion sting, only a honey bee sting. Perhaps I had my due with a venomous snake bite? I was almost a teenager when we moved back to Texas and a creek ran close to our home with a marshy bit of woods but I was too old for that and preferred just walking the neighborhood streets with a friend or two. This, and one of my good friends had a pool in her backyard Wandering the creek was for little kids. But once my incarceration at the lake began, I would wander around the fields near our land. I hated going to the lake with my parents; it was made bearable if a friend came along. My two best friends’ parents were convinced their daughters were taking advantage of my parents. Years later, I explained to one of my friends’ mom (the friend with the pool) that T didn’t eat much and it kept me from driving my mother insane. One would think, that my love affair with summer would have made weekends at the lake even sweeter. Or that a lake was way better than a swimming pool. Not so much.

There was plenty of nothing to do that first summer at the lake. For me at least. I certainly wasn’t going to build a retaining wall or help pour cement for the boat dock. Or move dirt from one pile to the other. I was way way too busy being miserable to help with the work. I think by August we had a television in the trailer. If I remember correctly it a miniscule black and white set with a terrible antenna. Maybe. We did have a radio but my father had me convinced the only station it would get was an AM Country station. What, being SO FAR from the city and all. I think I was in my thirties when I figured out he had lied to me so I wouldn’t bother touching the radio to find another more suitable station. That first summer at the lake, I read War And Peace. I was thirteen and I read Tolstoy. That’s freakin’ bored. And I wrote probably the most anachronistic historical romance ever written by a young girl. I found a copy of it when we moved to The Fabulous House In The Suburbs. I very systematically ripped the spiral notebook into tiny pieces, a time consuming task which offered up plenty of time for me to wince and throw up a little in my mouth as I read each astoundingly bad word. Dad foolishly tried to get me interested in fishing. Again. A few years before, he tried to take the family fishing. I was not having any part of it and so noisy no one was catching fish until he rigged my line and for forty years (yes, 40 not 4) I thought I had caught that fish. “Catching” the fish probably only kept me quiet for an hour or so but that’s better than nothing. So he thought maybe I was a grown up enough to enjoy down time, sitting in a boat at dawn staring at the water and a small piece of nylon string. Because, yeah, that is way way more interesting than watching a snowy version of the Match Game or reading Tolstoy at the decent hour of ll:30 in the morning. And to my credit, I tried but I stopped trying because I did have a few minutes of mature, empathetic clarity, and felt sorry for Dad because it seemed like all he did was untangle my line. Is it any wonder the second and third summer we had a lake place, my parents let me stay with my sister in Southern California for a few weeks? I’m sure their ears stopped ringing from the complaints, sighs and whining after about ten days of being blissfully teenager angst free. I never asked them what they did while I was gone that month: I probably don’t want to know.

One of the best summer’s ever was the summer of ‘82. My hours as a nurses' assistant at the hospital had been reduced and I was living with my best friend, her boyfriend and Jack. That July, BF-boyfriend and I camped our way to the Texas coast, with stops in Austin and San Antonio. BF couldn’t go; she was starting her career as a nurse that summer. It was also the summer I read Lolita with Jack. We took turns reading it out loud to each other. This came about because I had been reading Tess Of The d’Urbervilles and was so depressed by it, my three housemates took it away from me, sick of my tears and rants about the injustice of it all. I‘m not sure why Jack thought Humbert Humbert‘s fantasies of a young girl were going to make it all better. I wish I could ask him. That summer was the beginning of Jack’s untimely and premature march towards a senseless and completely preventable death. Because he is gone, the memories are a little sweeter and more precious. I’m thankful the two most painful episodes in my life happened in the summer months because I know they were made more bearable by the simplicity and generosity of the season. Besides that, the painful stuff always seemed to happen just before school started again and the new school year made everything new in one episode and the other episode just gave me courage to start a new life one autumn.

Midsummer Report Card

Landing into the middle of my life-post vacation--last week put blogging into the back seat. I even knew what I wanted to write about but real life, my real work pressed upon me and I didn't sit down to the computer until today. I Being away from here made me realize how much I missed working in our yard and garden. Coming home to four foot tall tomato bushes and chard ready for harvest was particularly sweet. Hopefully, the huge tomato bushes aren't a lot of faulderah of greenery without the benefit of fruit. Summer has been rainy and on the cool side and even the foothills are still sporting their May greenery--a pleasant change--usually in July things are looking hot and limp like your well-heeled Alabama aunt on a Sunday afternoon in June. Working in the dirt in the mornings this past month has definitely taken the edge off my brittle personality. I feel invigorated and cleansed after long days of nursing. Everyday I am home, I find an excuse to work outside or just be outside. Ironically, the dark rainy days buoyed my spirits, too. Probably the novelty of it all. I loved working in the cool damp of the early mornings this June.

Last month the sky was tinged with light before five but this morning I noticed predawn is now later. insert audible and dramatic sigh here Fortunately, after next week, it won't be necessary to race to the south bed before the sun starts it's twelve hour march across my flowers. The Girl is so terribly ingenious, with help from our landscaper, she is installing an irrigation system to the flower beds and veg gardens. No more moving hoses around, making sure it isn't tangled or kinked, maneuvering around a dog prone to wandering, downspouts, and stepping stones.

I have learned a great deal from my first garden. The most important thing I have discovered is a new passion. In the nuts and bolts department of gardening, I've learned Bee Balm aka Burgamot will take over the world given half a chance; Verbena and lavender are well behaved Submissives and crave too much light and very little. My delicate Trollius has proven to be a finicky Madwoman of the attic so I've taken a great chance and moved her this morning to a shadier spot in the front yard. The only reason I haven't killed my yellow pet is because our summer has been temperate and wet. And who knew something named "Bachelor Button" would not relish full on sun. I was thinking: bachelor farmer. When the truth of the matter they resemble these fellows. (my plants have all taken on the persona of Victorian stereotypes, haven't they? I'm truly obsessed!)

I successfully transplanted zinnias to a bare spot in the veg garden. The Bee Balm has also been relocated to a spot where he can continue to spread his wings and take over a troublesome spot. Oldest Friend quipped that 80% of gardening is moving plants. Fortunately, I won't be moving that many plants but since I planted invasives I see digging, dividing and moving in my future. The goal is to commit Drive By Yarrow Drops in the middle of the night. The Girl tells me I have a green thumb but I'm not sure about this. I think it's forgiving weather patterns, dumb luck and passion. It was a humbling gift to enjoy the lovely chard which began as a seed in my window. I planted seeds on our snow day in mid April as a tonic against relentless winter.

So the question I'm pondering today is this: Does a passion for something constitute a gift? Does it matter if I am "gifted" if the act gives me this much joy?

I know you are all waiting with "baited breath" for my musings and sudden epiphany but a big question like this must germinate like my chard.

Meanwhile, it's time to don my large brimmed hat and make the weed rounds. Saturday is promising to be cooler and damp so moving the other Trollius plants and wane Batchelor Button will have to wait until then and I won't have to be in the yard by 0-gosh-thirty.