Summer When Dust Happens
As summer approaches its end, weather extremes dominate the news in dry regions of the West. Lakes shrink, forests grow brittle, power grids intermittently fail, and the danger of fires weighs heavy on the mind. By September, months have passed with little moisture to revive the gardens and spirit. As the air grows ever drier, a kind of creeping lethargy sets in, preying on animals, plants, and people alike. Like a great spider, heat holds the living in its web, sucking the energy from us a little more each day until we can hardly move. We try to remember the sound of rain on the roof, but still it does not come.
All around us, dust happens. Miraculously, life re-emerges from parched earth with even the scantest of showers, but just as quickly, it returns to dust without it. Dust is both a part of life and a metaphor for how we feel by the dog days of summer. How we deal with it is among life's persistent challenges.
Here in the Sierra Foothills, grassy weeds along the roadside and edges of untended yards grow the color of wheat ready for harvest. If left uncut, their spear-like seed heads stick on pantlegs and the fur of our neighbor’s yellow tabby cat as she wanders by in search of insects and skinks. Along unpaved country roads, a coat of gravel dust stirred up by passing cars and UPS trucks gradually coats brush, cars, mailboxes, and porches.
Dust happens. In life, spiritual droughts can leave us struggling to get through tasks we haven’t the heart to finish when our creative side gets out of balance. It is a given that each night, spiders weave invisible nets that dangle at eye level between porch posts and trees. And even though we know spiders are a part of summer, we still walk face first into their invisible traps when we step out to greet the morning. In the end, you either accept the reality of cobwebs and dust, or you become overwhelmed.
One way to deal with life's figurative dust is to attack the piles and tasks that stack up around you. For me, daily watering chores are a restorative meditation that begins when sunlight first appears like a distant beacon through the tall Douglas firs and Ponderosa pines off our eastern deck. This is the magic hour when I encounter tiny creatures here and there in the garden, unseen by those still sleeping or seeking relief under indoor ceiling fans. A tiny green praying mantis hops onto my foot for a ride to the potted fig tree where I release it under a giant leaf to stand guard over our crop of emerging figlets.
Along a retaining wall on the backside of the house, nasturtiums thrive in the heat while a nearby row of yellow squash blossoms and pumpkin leaves wilt unless protected under green shade cloth and a jolly row of umbrellas that sans pluie have been repurposed. In the meditation garden upslope, a bushy-tailed gray squirrel balances itself on the lip of our birdbath while hydrating while its mate sprawls out for a snooze on a small end table, already feeling the heat.
When watering chores are done, I meet Kit for coffee under the porch awning while there is still a hint of coolness in the air. Then we retreated inside and get on with the business that fills life’s calendar each day. By the weekend, I retreat into my study for a few quiet hours alone. There’s something therapeutic about seeing the surface of your desk for the first time in days. It’s a chance to begin again, to get out from under the weight of paper that seems to pile up like a river approaching flood stage no matter how you try to contain it. And, Hallelujah, it is a window of time to enter my solitary writer’s bubble and create another weekly blog.
Labor Day weekend when temperatures climbed over 100, we headed for a local movie theater with A/C for buttered popcorn and a light summer matinee showing of “Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris.” Evenings while tomatoes continue to pile up on the kitchen counter, I prepare light summer meals and daydream of spending August next summer in a small village on the coast of Portugal. Face it. Dust happens. Our challenge is to learn how to deal with it.