Summer is Signing Off

 We're nearing the end of August.  This is a mark in my calendar which traditionally sees me going for my last, lovely, Twilight Swims at the public pool.  What fun they are!  I swim laps, occasionally looking up to watch kids and not-kids diving off the low dive and high dive.  I catch my breath on the edge of the pool, and eavesdrop on grade school chums playing their games, both swimming and social.  After laps I sit in a chaise and dry off, watching young families frolic in the wading pool and the splash pool. 

I keep those verbs in the present tense, but for this year, those activities are either past tense, or future.  No swimming this summer.  Although the splash parks for toddlers were open, no public pools to swim and dawdle in.

Gardening this summer was a delight, and the reasons were two-fold.  Rural Kansas usually sees winter building up in January, and rearing its blasting head in February, wind coming in March, and by April?  Well.  I have been know to turn on my AC in April.  I am not proud of that confession, but it's true.  There is a point in my body, where, if the heat sets in, it just shuts down activity.  I don't have heat strokes, but I will notice that I will finish a task, and then go sit.  For too long.  But then, I realize the problem, turn on our AC, and soon I am back in productivity.  That. my friends, is my Kansas in April.

This spring, though,was something out of a Pacific Northwest novel.  A long, cool spring with sun which was not too hot, with showers which were not deluges, and with breezes which were not Kansas tornadoes.  It was truly a Spring to embrace.  That, and the pandemic fact that has kept me too close to home for too many months, has made some bang-up gardens in our yard.  The irises, through their own goodwill, set up a great display for weeks.  As did the lilacs.  They were followed by the sunflowers, the mandevilla, the giant hostas (I planted them meany years ago, and finally: they are giant and thriving.)  That Spouse o' Mine and I planted sugar snap peas, tomatoes, corn, okra, patty-pan squash.  And we have been at home, enjoying this toil.  We usually are not home to water or weed, and so our summer gardens are most often meager attempts.   

Our first grandchild - a granddaughter, Anika (rhymes with Monica) arrived the first of this month.  Every day is a new day in her growth and changes.  Each day, we all see some new familiar familial expressions on her slumbering face, her just-nursed smile, her serious studying of whomever is holding her.  What a time to come into the world.  Her Mom & Dad hold her, snuggle her, carry her as any parents do.  We grands, the aunties, the uncles, wash hands and cradle her wearing masks.  Our family is blessed to have a baby and she is blessed to have a home and a family.  All the other is the wake of this year, this pandemic year, and we will look beyond it.

Today is my sweet mother's birthday.  And, too, her mother's birthday.  My grandmother, Gram, passed thirty years ago.  My sweet Mom, three years ago.  So many thoughts.

But those will be notes for another day...