Summer Lovin'

Unkempt but happy.

As much as summer is a season of watermelon and corn, cicadas and swimming pools, for me, it also seems to be a time of accumulated wounds--scabbed-over cuts,  achy muscles and purpled bruises that, if viewed from a certain perspective, aren't so much a sign of clumsiness as they are evidence of a life lived right there in the midst of things.

. . . at least that's what I'm telling myself.

As I type this, I count at least 11 scratches from a midweek encounter with a pesky buckthorn.  If you aren't familiar with buckthorn, imagine Christ's crown of thorns and go from there.  This invasive species (which Brexited from Europe in the 1800s)  has 3-inch-long, needle-like thorns and is a popular choice for hedges between neighboring properties, which might explain why Jeremy and Jody have pretty much quit stopping over to borrow a cup of sugar, which is too bad because we really like Jeremy and Jody.

I've also got a nice bruise--now waning--that stretches across my left shin, and a strange scrape across my nostril, neither of which I can tie to a particular incident.  Like I said, I've been living in the midst of things. . . .

I have tried to take steps towards a better me, though.  For instance, I've been on a two-bath-a-day schedule lately, something for which I'm pretty sure others are grateful.  As a 54-year-old pudgy woman in the midst of a pretty significant heat wave, both inside and out, it just isn't possible to get by with one bath a day.   That said, other areas of hygiene have gone a bit neglected.

Many mornings before heading out for my walk, I don't bother to change out of the ratty t-shirt I'd slept in (the one with a faded message and a handful of moth holes near the waist).  And my unbrushed hair--think "matted dog"--pretty much finishes the look.  That might explain why people I encounter on these walks often hold out a handful of change and a granola bar as I pass.

Thing is, I don't really care.  I don't care about the scratches or the moth-eaten tees, the rumpled 'do or the slow drip of sweat wending its way downward.  Well, maybe the sweat.  For me, one of summer's most endearing qualities is its ability to impose itself upon me.  Like some months-long sweat-lodge ceremony, summer inundates me with its heat and its promise, its fever dreams and strange views.

And, at least through July, I'm game for it.  Because, soon enough, I'll be expected to be an adult again, a respectably-groomed, reasonably professional person who rushes from one air-conditioned environment into another, eschewing Mother Nature's views while I earn a decent paycheck, one that--eventually--will buy me another two-month pass, come next June.