Iced Coffee Chat: Mid-July

 

Hello loves.  Come in and have something icy with me.  I'm opting for coffee.  I'm still eking out those cold brew sachets that John bought me a couple of months ago.  There's lemonade, tea, or good well water over ice.  We are so blessed to have such clear water without any mineral taste at all.  

How've you been?  It feels like I haven't sat down to talk in ages.  June and the first part of July were busy days.  This week is blissfully wide open with only one library visit if the kids even care to go and a day out to visit Mama.  Those are all my commitments this week.  

I have been trying to keep cool.  It's been some kind of hot here in Georgia and the days it rains get super steamy.  Once it rains it's not unusual to have it cool down a good twenty degrees which is nothing to sneeze at when the heat index has been well above 100.  It does amuse me though that I'll get chilly if I'm riding in a car with the windows down and yet it's warmer outdoors than I keep my house all summer long.  

I'm not one of those who turns the AC way down.  I try to keep mine at around 78, which means the AC runs all of the time on a really hot day but it's not struggling as hard to keep the house at the set temperature.  Saturday, the thermostat read 81.  That's about right for this time of year.  Now and then we'll shut it off entirely for fifteen minutes and then turn it back on and it works a wee bit better.   

Tis the season though of darkened rooms as we close the shades and pull the black out curtains shut, and we drink loads of iced drinks.  If it's very hot we try to move as little as possible, because breathing deep can work up a wild sweat.

Can you believe it's mid-July?  I still don't feel the year has flown but it does amaze me that the weeks keep slipping by.  I wonder sometimes, am I letting life slip away as well?  Am I doing more than just mindless repetitive work tasks?  Have I stopped to do things that bring me joy in this season of the year?  Have I been mindful of opportunities that might come my way to spend time with the kids?  Have I watched a sunset, or greeted a sunrise?  Have I stood in wonder and stared at the fireflies flashing in the dark?  Have I rooted myself in this season?

I tend to put on blinders and focus on only the things I can see right in front of me.  Am I more mindful of the smudges on the cabinets than I am of the dragonflies alight on every tall stem in the yard?  Have I been lost on the computer instead of sitting on the porch for a few minutes listening to the cicadas and crickets hum?  Have I been so keen to get reduced price produce that I've failed to get a fat green tomato or a basket of ripe peaches?  

Well as it happens, I have spent time with most of the grandchildren over the past few weeks.  I hope I can see Taylor next weekend.  I barely had a chance to speak to her last weekend.  She was as busy as we were keeping up with the two little ones, and then she had her duties as Ring bearer to perform.

I have enjoyed an especially beautiful sunset one evening after a heavy thunderstorm.  I'm always awake early these summer mornings, but I've yet to rise before the sun.

I haven't even thought about green tomatoes or okra or fresh squash.  But I have had some lovely fresh off the stalk ears of corn and peaches that drip juice down your arm as you eat them.  And I indulged in peach ice cream when Lily came to visit.

I have sat on the porch with coffee when the weather isn't too warm early in the day and listened to the birds and admired the way the sun turns the dew to diamonds on the blades of grass.  Now and then John and I slip outside and sit for a few minutes, grateful for the tiniest breeze that blows across our moist faces and necks and we listen to the cicadas and lament how the grass needs to be mown yet again.

I was in the car with John on Friday, and I looked across the lawn and counted a half dozen dragonflies perched on daylily stems taking the sun on their wings.  

But yes, I've spent far too much time on the computer and cleaning and thinking of a hundred other things instead of appreciating the good things about July, about summer.

I am a farm girl at heart even though the farmers in the family have all passed away.  I can't help but notice what's growing in the fields around about and watching to see what crops are growing.  In the fields around and about there's corn standing so green and pretty in the fields and looking 'as high as an elephant's eye' as the song says in Oklahoma!  There's cotton and some of has begun to bloom.  What do cotton blooms look like.  They are a soft pink or white all on the same plant.  And the flower itself looks like a small hibiscus or okra flower (those are related by the way).  Peanuts are doing really well, too.  We've had a great summer thus far of enough sun to keep things growing and enough rain to keep things watered just enough.  Soybeans are coming along as well.  So far, it looks like the farmers here can expect a decent harvest year.  

I know that it all can change.  Weather is fickle.  Disasters happen.  Rain ceases, or floods.  Hot dry winds come and blow the life out of every living thing.  Hailstorms beat things down.  Pests invade the land.  But there's something in me that is deeply appreciative of the surrounding countryside, the rhythm of crops being planted and growing and being harvested.  It connects me deeper to the land somehow.

I dream of gardening on a grander scale than what I do.  Of having a pretty little garden plot and a few chickens to cluck and crow about the yard.  Of having more flowers about the house but when it gets as hot as it is now and the flowers begin to look sad and worn and tired out, I find my desires falter quite a bit and I feel as deflated as the plants all look.  

I was so disappointed this past week to look out and discover that my lovely lush little tomato plant was nude except for one big Green Horned Worm sitting sassily upon the top branch.  I discovered when I went out to squish him that he'd left me not quite a nude plant but two tiny little leaves.  Ugh.  How I loathe these things!  

Gardening is both a joy and a heartbreak.  If ever I start to take it really seriously, I don't know how I'll manage my emotions about losing plants....

later:  I wrote all of the above on Saturday afternoon, planning to edit and continue on.  Now I want to add other thoughts, deeper ones and voice my heart here for a bit.

Saturday, I felt physically sick when John said quietly, 'Terri, this is not a joke...Former President Trump has been shot."  

I don't care how you vote, who you vote for or why...But I do believe that every man who is or has been President should be respected whether or not you agree with their stance or party or personal life.  I can tell you right now that I immediately shifted in my brain back to being a small child of 4.  My Daddy was sitting in a chair watching tv and weeping.  I asked him what was wrong.  He said quietly, "Terri, they've killed our President."   

I didn't know what a President was at that time, but I knew enough to know that it was serious and that it saddened a nation.  I knew enough to know that anyone who dares to take away leadership, present or former through assassination robs us of more than just a leader.  I recall when President Reagan was shot.  There was outrage all around.  I suspect there was a great amount of sadness on both sides of this nation when President Lincoln was shot.  There is a respect and reference for the office of President and something that is intrinsically understood about our freedom in this country...I hesitate here because I am rethinking this statement.  Should I use the word 'is' or would I better say "was"?  Is there such a thing as respect for office any longer?  For the men who were lawfully elected?  I don't know.  

How ironic that in July, the month we celebrate our Independence, our right to self-govern, that this should occur.  Agreed or disagreed, we have to be careful not to lose sight of WHY this is an aberration.  

Does anyone remember what it was like?  To love your country?  To feel the emotions associated with a love of country.  Patriotism.  Pride in country.  That feeling of being one country, indivisible.  

Perhaps, like childhood it's a thing of the past.  But I miss it.  I miss a clear sense of right and wrong.  I miss so many things and I fear for what my children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren are going to face as they grown to be my age.

I miss people who remember that we might disagree in a few things and still be genuinely in agreement on so many other points.  I miss basic good morals that define kind and decent folks.  It's not a matter of sexuality or religion or ethnicity or branding.  It's a matter of just being part of the human race and trying with all our might to be a decent human being.  

But maybe I'm just old-fashioned that way.  

At any rate, I shall end here.