Summer thoughts…
desert evening in La Quinta, CA
Summer in Los Angeles is hot, and more humid each year. The trees are heavy with greenery and the road dust that accumulates from too long between rain showers. In July and August the shrubs are festooned with the chaotic webs of brown and black widows. Fat green beetles careen around the neighborhood, like drunkards weaving their way home. They buzz and bump and they cause children to scream, startled by their oblivious meanderings. The electric pink of the bougainvillea has faded to a papery beige and the dry leaves rustle, sounding like taffeta skirts dragging on the ground. Jacarandas have lost their purples and only delicate green fans remain. The plants seem heavy in the heat, weighed down by it. Most afternoons, even the light of the day seems too hot, the air is yellow and vibrant.
swimming at the neighbors house
volunteer fig tree in the yard
If you sit still in the rising heat you can hear the vibratory flight of hummingbirds, the death defying squirrel jumps and the double coo coo of the mourning doves. You can hear the air conditioning kick on and the neighbors pool filter chug along. It’s at these lush, hot, moments that I feel allowed to rest.
The summer is a transitory period between the chaos of school endings and the excitement of school beginnings; a pause before the rush. I have never been able to adjust that internal calendar, mine forever set to start in August and end in June. Usually I spend two thirds of the summer feeling guilty and anxious about what I “haven’t” done. Always trying to “fit it all in.” Then the last third, I sigh and wait, resigned to the stomach ache of worry I carry with resting. To say it more clearly, I have a hard time relaxing.
This year I have tried, tried hard, to relax more and be more easy. We have had a lot of screen time and swimming. We haven’t been ambitious at all. No far flung locales for us this year. I have started projects, but I haven’t finished any. I have big ideas, but I am convinced that their time will have to wait. I’ve straightened the studio, but made bigger messes.
work in progress.
Next summer, I hope to look back at this and remember that I need to rest. It is ok to relax and not make work. The truth is, no one is waiting for me, except me. If summer means less time in the studio, so be it. It also means more time with my sweet son. It means more time with my sweet husband. And, as a reminder to my future self, it means more naps.
