Hello, my little chickadees, and how is everyone? We're two days away from summer and Lord a'mighty, I'm happy. Today, as I stood outside my car pumping gas ($53.00!! $53.00 to fill up a freakin' VW GOLF!! And the tank wasn't even empty!! Fine, fine, moving on), I took a moment to appreciate the fact that I wasn't wearing a coat or sweater or even any type of jacket because...(drumroll, please)...I was not cold! I could stand outside in a t-shirt and shorts and worry about nothing more than a dribble of sweat rolling down my back. Well, maybe more like a bucket of sweat, but I am dead set against complaining about the heat in the same breath that I am praising it, so never mind. I'm saving that topic for next week.
Summer is the season of hope. If ever the sensation of timelessness exists, it is within the long, warm days of summer. When it's winter and cold, all my body parts remain in a permanent state of clenched as I sit hunched over in my 32 layers of clothing in a prehistoric effort to protect my vital organs. I have heard that some people like the cold; this I cannot understand. Winter is all about trying to make it home before the sun sets at 4:30 and turning your lights up all bright like so as to fool your brain into thinking that there are more than six hours of daylight available. With summer, though, anything is possible. Daylight just goes on and on and on so that by 9:00 in the morning you can accomplish everything on your to-do list and still have SO MUCH TIME AHEAD OF YOU!!
(I do have an issue with time, but that's not where I'm going with this post so please, just love me through it. Refer to the StoryPeople quote on the left for clarification.)
Anyhoo, it's summer and it is good. I am such a lucky duck to have wandered my professional way into the school system, which offers me 10 weeks off during the very best months of the year in exchange for my willingness not to be paid for it. (In an aside, I love it when non-teacher people tell me how easy squeezy it must be to work in the school system what with all the time off and that. The first thing I say to them is, "BWAAAAA HA HA HA HA!!" followed closely by, "Did you know that there are kids there?" and then, "Dude, it's not like we get paid for that time off."). Because we all spend 12 years or more of our youth following the school calendar, I think we become imprinted with the idea that June and July are ours to do with what we wish. I mean, come June 1st don't you always feel like it's time to go off the clock for a while?
That feeling, that sensation of freedom, is what I think we're supposed to naturally feel in our lives. Natch, we don't because of work and family and various and sundry obligations that probably further us along as human beings. Still, I think not enough emphasis is given to just relaxing and being. It's golden. So, in an effort to share that feeling with you, I'm going to list five summer things that make me happy. Because you know how I love my lists.
1. Getting up without an alarm clock in the morning and drinking tea in my pajamas. Ahhhh...
2. Running errands in the middle of the day...BECAUSE I CAN!! And seriously, normally I hate the errand thing. Heck, I'll even go to the mall in summer.
3. Sitting down to read an entire book at once. Oh, joy! (Ask me about reincarnation; that's been today's literary pursuit.)
4. Eating ice cream for lunch. And cake. And sitting on the patio with family and/or friends drinking margaritas with no worries about what needs to be done for tomorrow.
5. Just...not...rushing. (See previous comment about issues with time.)
Well, there it is, a random list of whatever popped into my head first. I'd love to hear from you, though--what is it about summer that makes your heart sing? What do you enjoy doing, or not doing, that makes it a vacation whether you're working or not? Come on, tell me. I won't tell anyone. Except for those people who read the comments section. But other than them, I won't tell a soul. Tell me one thing. Tell me a hundred things, I don't care. You know why? Because I have the time.
Love,
Wicked
P.S. If you are wondering why the title of this blog has nothing whatsoever to do with its content, it's because I had meant to write about something else entirely. But that's how my mind meanders these day, so I've decided to just leave things be and get back to the original post, oh, sometime.
9 comments:
Great topic! But maybe people are mad at you for your summer freedom, cause they aren't commenting yet!
When my spouse is out of town, it feels a bit like a vacation! And since we got a Prius!, I feel a little freer to just drive somewhere and explore; to look around certain places that I have been curious about. Like when there's a mountain - and you wonder what's on the other side - to be able to go look and kind of get lost.
Also in LA taking a different route home through neighborhoods you've never been in and finding great Old LA areas, or some hole-in-the-wall restaurant. Being able to stop and really look at the murals in East LA!
Also, taking a lolly-gag bike ride around our neighborhood on a warm evening.
Enjoy your summer!
Oh, yeah, babe. Summer quite simply rules Moi's world. I am like the lizard on the rock. I worship the heat, the sun, the sweat, and all the following fabulous things summer means:
Yes, being able to get up at the butt crack of dawn and do more in two hours than many people do in a day.
Walking Ivan through the hills in the dewy dawn minus ski pants and ear mufflers and gloves.
Snow White's Freakin' Wilderness Camp is open for business.
Looooonnnnnng happy hours on the patio with my honey bunny, with no care whatsoever about planning dinner, because it's just too hot to fire up the oven, so let's go get some pizza shall we?
The smell of summer. Sage, suntan oil, salty sweat. Ivan's heat-induced funk. Ozone before the monsoon. Baking car leather. Grilling food.
The fact that nothing seems impossible and that life runs with all pistons firing in the summer.
Well, I don't exactly have summers off, but I do enjoy the long days. I love my views of mountains and prairies. (I liked them a bit more last year when there was more green and wild flowers, but hey--high desert.)
I like to take road trips in summer.
I like camping in new places.
I LOVE going to *Pagosa*!
I don't like heat. No. I am well insulated and don't sweeat; therefore I suffer.
I like to sit outside and read, to sit on the deck in the evening-especially at dusk and I love to look at stars.
And I'm glad some folks have time off to play.
Oh my goodness...i am a winter people, but I love you anyway. Just would rather put on clothes instead of going naked... you may all thank me for that now. Love you.
Write a book,
Auntie M
a.fanny: Please, *please* be my tour guide when I finally get around to visiting LA! I want to ride in your Prius with you and go exploring. You make it sound so exciting!
Moi: "...life runs with all pistons firing in the summer." Love the expression! And sitting outside on the patio. And not cooking. Yes, yes, yes. I would say more but I'm falling into a soft lull at the moment...
DR: But your swamp cooler is running now, so things are better, yes? And going northward to the mountains of Pagosa to escape the heat is a sweet, tantalizing morsel to ponder on the hottest of days.
Auntie M: You're cracking me up! Isn't a Texas girl who loves the cold an oxymoron? After reading your response, I think perhaps it is *you* who should be writing the book. Love & hugs right back!
well summer *is* the season of hope, and that's what i like about it too. and we'll just leave it at that.
oh, and it's the time when *you* get to count the days until you Inevitably Collide With the Inexorably Engaging Zak. ooooh yeah, that totally rocks.
aj, dahling: I'd like to mingle the concept of "Hope" with the "Inevitability of Impending Zak Collision," but so far all I've created is a tiny squeak that sounds suspiciously like a cat fart. I'd also like to buy a vowel to apply to the situation, one that sounds like, "ew."
a suspiciously-cat-fart-like squeak IS the language of hope.
i thought after all these times, you'd at least know this.
still, in short, you've done it. good job.
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