Month: July 2014

Born in the Heat of Summer

I’m an August baby.  We are wonderful people, generally speaking, and can light up a room like sunshine pouring in through the windows even in the cloudiest weather, provided there are people around us.

It might be just me and not every August person, but when there is no one around and the clouds stay too long, my mood grows dark and brooding like a coming storm. Maybe I should be like a flower, feeding and basking in the rain, finding strength and beauty in the gray world in which they live. I’m not a flower, though. I love the first day of rain, especially as it is watering the yellowing lawn, and revitalizing the plants and shrubs. The second day of dreary weather darkens my soul. I feel I’m being pulled down toward a drain where the rushing water sucks at my life, covering me until I can’t breathe.

When the sun returns, as it will, I slowly return to a more ‘normal’ state of mind. I love the sunshine, so answer this. Why do I not love the heat?  My body is revolted by it.  Tremors and fever are the result of exposure to heat, along with nausea and exhaustion. Summer means long hours in my air-conditioned bedroom. It means being unable to be involved in every family activity. It means the very thing I love causes the thing that I hate, and that hates me.

I’m going to fight back. I’m going to buy a cooling vest. I will go to Hawaii next year. I will love the sunshine, I will snorkel, I will look weird in the vest, and I will survive the heat.  It will be glorious.

I think I’ll get that vest very soon. This August baby is going to rock the rest of the summer.

July

Bright sun blinds and reveals                                                                                                              At one and the same time                                                                                                              Glaring off a windshield                                                                                                                    Coloring a rose sublime.

Hear the sounds in the heat                                                                                                                  Of children laughing, playing                                                                                                                 Of water cooling and flowing,                                                                                                            Green garden hoses spraying.

Breathe in the blooming flowers                                                                                                        Smell the newly mown lawn.                                                                                                               Taste and see and feel                                                                                                                         Before July is gone.

Ball games, picnics, and fireworks,                                                                                                    Lakes and pools and streams                                                                                                              Willows swaying in the wind                                                                                                           And dancing in our dreams.

The hot and restless nights                                                                                                        Whirring from the fan                                                                                                                  Smiling at the memories                                                                                                                     Of when this day began.

July

 

Denise A. Carr

This Year

This is the year I’m going to finish the book I have yet to start. I’m going to learn a new language, get back to my pen pal, finish a wonderful series of books, and take the final April birthday grandchild out for their birthday meal before it’s time for the September grandchild’s outing.

So many things undone, so much physical and mental downtime. Dear pen pal, I wrote you one letter on the stationery I’d finally found. During a mental white-out I threw away what I thought was a small bag of trash, forgetting I’d already thrown away that bag. What I really disposed of was a small bag of stationery and greeting cards, and one new prescription.

Don’t cry for me, fellow humans. I cry for myself rarely, as I usually can’t remember about what I was going to cry.  And now the end of July approaches, more than half a year behind me, but still months ahead of me. I will start the book I want to write. I will get back to that foreign language. I will write my pen pal again, on notebook paper if that is what presents itself to me. Hear me, April Boy? How is next Saturday for dinner?

I am a third of the way through the fourth book of the series. It’s slow going when reading aloud, but my mother and I will finish the fifth book by the end of the year! 

If for any reason I fail to accomplish any of the above goals, I will make new goals. Life will always have other plans to push mine to the back burner, where – if the heat’s on – they can simmer gently until it is time to set the world on fire. Or something like that.

One more thing. I will keep on blogging.