Summer Begins

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There is no rhythm to the summer schedule. Or if there is, it’s too tiny for me to hear it so soon. There is one small stone after another, some on the floor of the house, some in my pocket gathered from the shores of the Strait of Juan de Fuca.

It sounds so glorious to name drop a Strait, like I’m a world traveler or a geographer. I am neither. I am instead someone who hears time whizzing by my ears, my nervous energy enlarged by coffee. My need to slow down and listen is made greater by the deadline staring me down. I must write about marriage, and write about it well by the EOD. EOD as in end-of-the-day-deadline.

Meanwhile, June continues. The air, cool and heavy with pollen. One daughter still asleep, another off babysitting with her cold in tow. A husband who would say work continues all summer long, his schedule not so different except for the outdoor activities he crams into the hours outside of work.

How do I listen to the tiny sounds? How do I settle my racing pulse to match the needs of my work and the wants of my body to climb into these days and own them? Last night I canceled a walk with friends, instead holding fast to my family of four. Yes, I was tired but it was more to be with my family. I keep trying to catch up with what I really want. What do you really, really want?

I really, really want to gather those moments where my rhythm slows down enough to take in the weather around me and really feel it on my body while surrounded by the people I love best. Like I did this past Sunday: I lay in the sun atop a gunnery at Fort Worden as the sun seeped into my skin, my family close by. For a while, my husband’s head settled on my legs and nothing else mattered.

Maybe right now that EOD deadline matters, but I can’t get there until my pulse slows down and I enter right now. Perhaps this is why I started meditating again this morning after a break. Because if I sit still and remember how that sun felt seeping into my body, I have small chance of being here now again and again and again. It feels like fooling time, this trick. Or maybe I just need to stop drinking coffee. I bet that would help, too. Let’s give that idea the triple ha-ha-ha, as my teen would say. Ah yes, my salty brain thoughts say keep the coffee, up the meditation, and hang on for whatever comes next. Let’s go.

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