pull up a chair

even in the shade, that poor popsicle had no chance. those sweet ice crystals caved, gave in to the sultry stiff surroundings, the air that would not move, the breeze that would not be. those ice crystals succumbed.
yup, it’s hot all right. gettin’ hotter in the days to come. weather map tells me. but so, too, do the birds that’ve run for cover. it’s still out there this morning. not much is moving. it’s like that when the hot is coming.
but then, it’s august. august, the season that defies description in the hot department. metaphor heaped on metaphor. all us mortals trying like anything to describe how hot it is.
so hot old ladies take to sitting in their brassieres, hope that no one’s watching. and old men, not caring, plunk down on porches with their bellies bare, for all the world to see. and if there’s a plug, there’s a fan, and those old men are right beside it, chest hairs blowing in the plugged-in wind.
so hot even the tomatoes are begging for a break. come pluck me, please, i’m roasting. and the only redemption in the garden is that you get to turn on the hose, stand there like a fool, pretend you’re hard at work when really all you’re doing is making sure your toes get right in the way of falling water, get doused.
so hot you stick to your seat, and the backs of your thighs let out a little yelp when at last you shove away from the table, attempt to shuffle on to just another seat on the other side of the room. not much real moving going on when the heat’s on. mostly just some shuffling around the checkerboard that is your suddenly sedentary life.
you get the point. but isn’t it a delightful game to play while watching mercury rise, hover up there where the triple digits kick in? i highly recommend it.
once you’ve brushed up on all your so-hot metaphors, you’ll need some strategies, if you’ve any hope of getting to the other side of august. and since we’re all-purpose here, we’ve got some tried-and-true ideas for heat survival.
oh, before i get too far, i should mention my credentials. you wouldn’t take this hot squad, i know, from just any sucker strolling down the steamy sidewalk with a megaphone and a placard.
i am the real deal, i tell you. i birthed a baby on the hottest night in the history of one august. it was so hot they wouldn’t let us out for a couple days. so hot they had to cool the colostrum when it came squirting out. just kidding. but, oh, what a metaphor. these metaphors just shoot me to the moon. cool moon, besides.
all right, now that it’s been established that i know of which i speak–no one needs further convincing, do they?–let’s move on to where i cough up the birthing mama’s guide to pushing through the burn.
hmm. that does have a bit of an obstetric ring to it, but trust me, those days are done, this is all about the hot spell that is barreling across the country, even as i sit and burn my tongue on this hot, hot coffee.
i’d say the europeans have the brightest idea for what to do with august’s sun: they take the month off. rip the page from the calendar. hightail it to the seaside or up into the mountains. or just plunk down in some vineyard in provence, make do with grapes and olives and lavender. how sad can it be?
but we, most of us anyway, are americans. so we work and we perspire. here then, is how i plan to spend my sweaty days ahead:
i will move into the basement by day. it’s dingy down there, but it’s cool. and right now cool is the goddess we aim to befriend.
when i must come up, for air and the occasional drop of sunlight, i will hunker down under wide-brimmed hat, and i will take to making like a victorian lady. i will wield a fan. a nice chinese one landed here the other day, and i’ve been wafting it around, blowing air. it works. i put the little one to sleep last night stirring air in his direction.
i will tank up every morning, fill the biggest pitcher on the shelf with ice and water and, because we need a dignified air to go with all this hog-sweating, i will tuck in sprigs of mint. i will be so busy sipping and sucking mint, i’ll barely notice that i am dripping. down in the dark and dingy basement where i will be sequestered, a prisoner of august, indeed.
yikes.
hmm.
on the other hand, i might just tough it out. stay up where air is hot, yes, but bright. i am not much of a mole, and i’ll go nuts, i think. if i stay in the fluorescent cool.
perhaps i’m not the wimp i thought i was. perhaps none of us are. perhaps the mere thought of being locked in the basement, where the mice run, where the spiders crawl, is enough to get me through the heat.
maybe i’ll just busy myself rescuing tomatoes from the vine. fan old ladies. leave old men alone.
i could think of worse ways to while away the hottest month around.

okay, now it’s your turn. we’ve all sorts of games to play today. there is the metaphor challenge. go ahead, fill in the blank. “so hot…..”
and then there’s your chance to share survival skills. what do you like to do to beat the heat?
and, because taking turns is such a good idea, we can play whatever game you would like to play. just explain the rules. be polite. and we will play along. heck, it’s august. it is the month for goofing off.

and to the love of someone else’s life who is back home, now, in sweet chicago, welcome back. we’ve been counting down your return and now we know, all is well. in old hyde park.

i danced with the moon last night. no, really i did. actually it was more peek-a-boo than anything. but we were a pair, the moon and i.
he pulled, i followed.
it started, like many a duet, without me seeing him coming. he tapped on my shoulder from out of the mid-night’s deep blue.
i was driving toward home in what seemed like the dark of night, through the woods, actually, when suddenly the road took a rise. there he was, wide and ready as could be. orange. so orange, i blinked for a minute there, not quite sure what i was seeing. there was something huge and round and the color of grilled cheese, just over the treetops. one minute i saw it, the next it was gone.
had i not been a girl with my hands on the wheel, i would have rolled down the window, gawked. had i not been a girl who does not believe in aliens, i would have thought we were being invaded. by a big wheel of cheddar.
now it’s not every night that the moon is bright orange, and it’s not every night that it calls you by name. but that moon, it called me. i heard it.
if the moon is a magnet, and i think that it must be, it sucked me straight to the water’s edge. i got as close to that moon as the land would allow me. and if i’d had even less sense than i already don’t, i’d have jumped in that lake and slapped through the water.
it took my breath away, that big beautiful moon. took it away in a way that, once again, felt elemental. felt essential. i was just me, little me, and i was pulled through the night, through the glow, by something that never got closer.
to dance with the moon, to play catch with a raindrop, to give names to the flowers, to whisper to worms, is to let down all those things that keep us apart. it is to whirl in the zydeco jig of creation. to say we belong to the same riotous marvelous wonder-filled notion.
once i’d caught sight of that moon, that glorious moon i had dubbed cheddar moon–knowing enough to know all moons have a name, and this was a moon i was deeply being drawn to–i pressed my right foot a little bit nearer to the torn mat under my pedal. i was driving a bit like a woman late for a date. i was afraid by the time i caught up, i might miss him. and this was a dance i was not sitting out.
as i hurried to get there, past a mile or two of trees and old houses, i thought it quite sad all the windows i passed that hadn’t a clue of the moon playing out there.
that moon was a sly one, a sleek one; it did not bare its face to just any old house. it was too low in the sky for most of the folks who were turning out lights, going into bed, missing the peek-a-boo game.
but i knew. that moon was playing with me. and i, overcome, played along. when i got to the place where the road was no longer, or where the road did go on but it was blocked for the night, i simply pulled to the curb, locked the car, and started to walk through the night.
i wasn’t afraid. not much anyway. i was going, after all, to play with the moon. the moon, i knew, was watching. who ever heard of a curly-haired, 50-year-old lady stricken while chasing the moon?
and then i got there. i got to the water’s edge, where the moon was melting all over the water. i stood there, little me, neck bent, head back. my eyes, i’m certain, reflecting the moon.
i heard the slap of the lake, against rocks, against pier. i felt the sand through my toes. i watched as the orange drained out of the moon. the higher it inched, the less cheddar it got.
mostly, i stood very still. i breathed, and i basked in the ooze of the moon on the water. the peek-a-boo game had finally ended. the moon, as it hung there, was bold and unblinking. no shy suitor, this one. it would have beamed beyond day break, i’m certain. but, at last, i bid it good night.
by the time i got home, it was a plain old white gibbous moon. it was still a fine moon. but it wasn’t a cheddar moon. the cheddar moon, just out for a while, had called me to play. and i answered.

ready to lock me up? call the lunatic bin? don’t. it keeps us alive, it keeps us on fire, to never mind bedtime once in a while, to play with the moon instead. have you played with the moon lately? did you happen to take in the cheddar moon last night? i hoped and i prayed as i drank in that moon that my faraway camper took a big gulp of the same up on his faraway island….

oh, last thing: so sorry for the fuzzy moon up above. i am no astrophotographer, just a girl with a lens who, more than anything, wanted to get you a slice of that moon. the cheddar, i’ll never forget.

i believe, any minute now, my so-called garden will be passing around a petition, picking a representative, and knocking on my door. they will, the citizens of my misbehaving, ill-disciplined garden, be demanding all sorts of reforms.
for one, they will be insisting on breathing room. and they might ask for a class in manners, too. no more tall guys keeling over, knocking into little guys, stealing all the room.
it’s a mess out there. always is, come august. which we have now, eek, come to.
excuse me, did anyone see july zipping through the streets, throwing clothes in suitcase, panting as it packed, hellbent on a quick exit out of town?
but back to the so-called garden. if you were poetic–and polite–you would call it riotous. rambunctious, maybe. free-wheeling, at best.
if you were honest, though, you would call it out-of-control. on the loose. on the verge of detention. in need of, like the bad boys of long ago, a reformitory.
or maybe, gulp, it is the gardener who should be sent away, sent to where the lazy learn a thing or two, the slouchers to sit up straight, the laissez faire to let up on the laisse.
it happens year after year at this point in the summer. the early-on rediscovery of who is poking up where, and who’s made it through the winter, is but a brain cell now covered up with cobwebs. the standing tall, pushing toward the sun, that’s history too.
the poppies, spent and bowed now. the delphinium, once again an experiment in failure. dang, what is it with my soil? i think perhaps it’s allergic to cobalt blue. of course my favorite hue.
as i type, the black-eyed susans are shoving through the yarrow, the meadow rue has gone kerplunk, or is thirsty, maybe, sucking up the dingy bird bath, where it has laid its lovely head. and that’s only the half of it. on the south end, someone, please, dial 9-1-1. there is trouble going on, all sorts of pushing and jostling among the cat mint and the climbing roses.
oh, lord, we need a school marm.
and i, unkempt in my flower beds, am not the marmy sort. my hair’s unruly. my shorts are shedding threads. i am, given the standards of the ’hood, where no one leaves the house with naked toenails, a mess. and so’s my garden.
as always, like all who need a 12-step course to recovery, i vow reform. i’ll mend my ways. get better. next year i’ll tend my garden, start to finish. i’ll not let things get quite so out of hand.
for all i know whole colonies of critters make their homes in the tangled, shadowed thicket that is my garden. i know i once walked out one early morning, and thought perhaps a cow had come and spent the night, crushed flat in its slumber all that had been standing.
or perhaps the ’possums are having hoedowns where my flowers try to be.
it is thick and dense out there. stems collapse every which way. if i put my ear to the ground, i am sure i could hear little shouts of “timber!”
like so much of life, perhaps, it merely needs attention. it wants for little. drink and light, a bit of love.
it is begging me, i think, to stroke its brow. to sit and tend it. adore it like a kitten doing tricks.
i’ve been, i admit, a tad distracted these past few years. there is the little child. and the day job. and the construction that hammers on. it is hard to garden when a slew of nails is littering the lawn.
but any day now, cross your fingers, the builders will be done. will pack up their tools, and roll away. leave me and my garden to mend our ways.
i will play at being the school marm, and the stems will sit up tall. in lined-up, straight-edged rows.
nah, on second thought, that sounds rather stuffy. not at all the way i want my garden to be. i want a garden that feels free to dance, and twirl, to raise its arms, salute the sun.
maybe all i need is a little oomph. to not give up the ghost before the glory’s done.

anyone out there with a garden, like mine, that is, um, on the unruly side? do you cower when the neighbors come, for fear they’ll gawk at how you so-called garden? are you embarrassed by your unmade beds? are the sheets askew, the covers dumped? do you, like me, need a cleaning crew to attack the mess? ‘fess up, folks, a messy lonely gardener is not the way to begin the month….