Not Yet Fall, I Promise

 

Just checking in. It has been a while. Nearly six months.

I've been writing quite a bit. Had an essay published recently, which was awesome. I will find the link and put it in here, so anyone who drops by can go read it.

These are weird times and I'm not sure what to say. The 2020's keep ripping my heart out. I sew it back up, I patch the holes, I find new energy elsewhere, then someone else closes their practice or retires or decides they don't want the reminder that COVID is still a thing and still a threat and some of us are still taking precautions. For ourselves and others. But my and my partner's mask wearing seems to make some people uncomfortable. I think it reminds them that the threat is still out there and they've learned how to ignore it; they don't want to be reminded. They don't want to risk feeling guilty or pity or whatever it is that my mask induces in their psyche. It's just a KN95 to keep me from getting COVID and the potential negative outcomes, due to a genetic condition I have which puts me at pretty high risk. Each new discovery about how covid damages the body, potential causes of Long Covid, the unseen damage for organs, including heart and lungs but not limited to - each discovery results in more reasons why my body is a very bad candidate for a covid infection. It's an invisible genetic condition but lethal when mixed with a vascular disease, one that seems to do a lot of its damage by use of blood clots.

So people back away.

People become distant.

We become the people who slip into out of sight = out of mind.

Or the people who are too much trouble to try to be around.

Because people don't want to wear masks.

People don't want to be reminded.

People seem to not want to know.

I miss theater.

I miss hanging out in cafes, writing, meeting with friends.

I miss my cat.

I miss feeling safe in my body, in my communities.

I am fortunate to have an online writing community, who also do things in person, and fly to other places to congregate. I went to one of the in-person events a few years ago. We all wore masks. The space was very open and ventilated. I drove with a friend and we were very cautious along the way. Those special gatherings are happening once or twice a year. But it's no longer safe for me to participate. No masks. No precautions except - well, the precaution for me is I can't go. I miss those gatherings; but I still have the online part of that community, which was an online community well before covid reared its nasty head.

The photo is from one of out tomato harvests. Three types of cherry tomatoes; our favorites are still the sun golds. And a couple of types of full size tomatoes. One of the plants, I did mistakenly purchase the type which becomes ripe nearly all at once; my intention was to do the opposite. It just means a full load or two of dehydrated tomatoes, maybe some gazpacho, some of the cherry tomatoes will go into the freezer.

In a few days I will also have a small vacation, part of which will be spent at the coast. During that time my only two goals are to rest, and to read the M-book from cover to cover -out loud- and then wrap up this round of edits. Mostly, I think it is really close. Really, really close.

Tomorrow our temperatures are also rising back up to 100, 101 for a few days. I'll need to pick the tomatoes before they split on the vine.

All I will say about NaNoWriMo right now is that I'm done. There have been some negative incidents, mishandling, accusations, a takeover, and more. It should have paused in the last transition, but it didn't; it kept going while trying to reorganize - paddling into the current and nearly capsizing. It has now all but capsized and the problems are probably its death knoll. I'm done, too. Another loss; another sadness. But I will keep writing and I will probably keep my big November writing push. It will just be done elsewhere and nowhere near the current incarnation of the the moniker.

Also, two people in as many days - people I know in real life - has said "Well, now that it's fall." It is not fall. It's the beginning of September. The light has shifted. Kids are back in school. The nights are cooler even when the days get hot. But it is categorically still summer. September, yes; Fall, no.

Leaves on the Ground

*

It's funny how quickly the air changes. Yes, I know, it really wasn't quick, it changes all the time, it's only my noticing that changes. 

First it's hot and it's dry and it's summer and each molecule is warmed by the sun, each particle on my skin feels like summer and hot.

Then it doesn't.

Like that.

Like - hey, it's September, welcome. 

It is darker earlier. I did notice that several weeks ago. When the other interpreter and I were preparing for the interpreted performance of Twelfth Night in Bend. On Fridays and Saturdays we went to different wineries to see the play. Same show, different location, different days.

And over those three weekends, the footlights came on a little earlier in the play than they had the week before. So I noticed the light shifting.

Then the fourth week, in Bend, the lights came on at intermission.

I see that our temperatures are headed back up for this weekend. And that's good. My tomatoes could use a few more days of heat, they are already slowing their production.

I haven't had enough of the sweet, round, deliciousness. Each day when I pick the golden orange and red cherry tomatoes, half of them make it to the house. And I remember, again, why I don't eat fresh tomatoes very often at other times of the year. It is hard to find a tomato - cherry or full-size - at other times which taste as good as the ones I planted and tended and picked. And popped right into my mouth direct from the vine.

So the air. Now. There are still waves and layers of warm. But the cooler bits are present as well. 

Heat layers warmth and dry puffs mix with molecules of wetter composition. I can smell it. I feel it on my skin.

The calendar tells me it is still summer.

The leaves already beginning to fall tell me it is the edge of autumn.

My skin says, stay present with whatever it is. 

Cool warm sun cloud water. 

*