Should we talk about the weather..??

This summer is just unreal so far. The weather has been crazy ever since I returned from Colorado – it's been so cold, I had to turn on the heating even as late as mid June when normally I turn it off by mid May. With the summer solstice it got a little warmer, or maybe I should say – the rain turned a little warmer – for that's what happened, it started pissing down like mad ... diluvian rain, for two weeks, making me feel all weary and irritable. The sound of the rain never ceased ... rain, rain, rain ... only interrupted by some violent hail or thunderstorms every now and then. When it finally stopped, the sudden silence was almost scary.

Within two days, it turned boiling hot. I guess you can imagine the effect of the soaking wet ground heating up like this ... jeez – outside it's steaming!! Some stifling muggy wash house climate. Everything’s damp. Even inside the house the air is so humid that the wallpapers start to peel and the books curl at the edges. Leaving the house, the skin turns sticky and sweaty within seconds. The slightest move is too much, too fast, too strenuous an action...

I haven’t experienced this kind of moist, humid summer in years. I feel like I'm in South Central Georgia again ... wondering how those Dixie storms managed to make it all the way here ... it’s raining every other afternoon now, along with heavy thunderstorms. After the rain, it usually cools down a bit, but in the morning the heat is back, steaming up the air ("what air?", one is tempted to ask) in no time.

For the first few days I felt just fuzzy, listless and somewhat paralyzed, but I must admit that I'm starting to like it somehow. I feel „comfortably numb“ – actually, it’s not such an unpleasant feeling, temporarily losing all sense of time and space and purpose. Days just merge into one another, slipping right through my fingers. Everything is blurry, like not really real ... last night, yesterday, last week, ten days ago ... it matters not, it all feels the same. Far away, dream-like, irrelevant ... laissez-faire is the only attitude one manages to maintain in this heat.

I wish I had a wooden front porch with a rocking chair where I could sip my iced tea in the evening breeze ... I'd close my eyes and dream of the south ...



But no, I'm not complaining – for the first time in a long time, I'm pretty content being where I am. Maybe the "where" really doesn't matter that much at times. I feel like I carry it all right inside lately, everything I'd normally seek in the distance ... beauty, peace, harmony, adventure ... whatever. Maybe it's myself, providing places with all that, myself carrying it there, my own mind creating my own reality. I normally just don't even try to find it where I am anymore, assuming it is some place else. I guess it's not. It's right here.

These past few weeks have been filled with bliss, beauty and wonder. So much to be grateful for, so many moments of happiness, of peaceful adventure, moments of joy and pleasant surprise, moments of love ... moments that make everything else seem worthwhile, no matter what.

What a wondrous, wonderful life this can be – right here where I am.