Living Large and Easy

Summer’s heat returns today and that is good for me because I like the heat, enjoy the heat even though I cannot tolerate the heat like I used to but I would sooner be hot then cold. If I wear my hat I am ok. But, I have already heard the comment have I felt like Autumn is coming on, or is summer over. It’s not, I know cause I can tell some how, usually it’s a certain smell I perceive usually in the morning as I am heading for work. When I was younger the smell came off the desert just off my home in Boise. The smell was a mixture sage and rotting leaves but there was definitely a specific order. I still get that odor later in the summer these days. I have not smelled Autumn yet.

Last night DD and I were out on the porch watching the neighborhood and he asked if I felt like Summer was over—I said “no” not yet. We just finished a row of days of four days of 100 degree weather and even more of 90 degree or above—a hot spell but the spell ended with storms clouds and cooler weather—I think a lot of folk were ready for Summer to be over but I say that Summer is not over by a long shot. I think a another hot spell will be starting in a couple of days –I predict we will get one after that maybe even two as we get into August. The back of summer breaks sometime in the middle of August—a time when the days begin to cool, slowly. The temp may be hot even wonder back into triple digits it will not be the same kind of heat. I also noticed yesterday, in the afternoon the light was different, the figure ground effects are changing—the light is beginning to look more like Fall but it’s not Fall yet.

I am not ready form the change…yet, I am sure later in August I will be. When I am so hot and frustrated that I long for longer nights and cooler days and a clean crisp day that only Fall can bring but I am not there yet. I still long for hot days when I can go barefoot, wear cutoffs and sleep without the covers. I want fresh fruit straight off the vine and vegetables left on the front porch or on the front seat of the van. I am still up for BBQs and Saturday get togethers and Sunday coffee listening to NPR. I want tom roll round the house naked straight from the shower dripping dry in the summer’s heat feeling like this Summer will last for ever. I still have too much to live for to let Summer go before its time. I look forward to the next batch of Summer storms, electricity falling from intimating thunderheads and cooling monsoon rains and a time for living large and easy.