Tag: summer

In search of lost lazy time

At the beginning of June, I wrote in my diary how I didn’t want this summer to be about travel, or fun, or sex, or adventure. What wanted back was time. Where has my time gone? Why were the days so long and languid back then, but now they seem to fly by in an instant? And why is it that I have to fight to get that time back? Nothing kills leisure like saying to yourself: I only have 30 minutes to relax!

I’ve been growing sunflowers this summer.

It could simply be the effects of getting older. I recall summers of my youth, which were busy enough between summer school theatre productions and early cross country practices. Yet somehow I had time to sit in the park lackadaisically for what seemed like hours rambling with a few fellow misfits about absolutely nothing. Later on in my twenties, I remember a particularly warm summer afternoon lounging in a friend’s Hells Kitchen apartment drinking wine while hours dripped slowly by. Then my friend said, “Let’s go second-act the matinee of Grease…”

It’s a phenomenon I could never explain to my 24-year-old self because he would probably look at me like I was insane: Time, my friend, will speed up as you get older. Those things you want to do, do them now.

So, this summer my effort has been to slow time a bit. Like many, I see leisure as a luxury most people can’t afford. And that is probably true. I’d say I’m one of the lucky ones who has that option. It is one of the reasons why I never had kids. And yet, even being single and childless, I find my days are sucked dry by endless menial tasks. I can’t really break things down to five easy steps to getting your time back this summer. But since this blog is about notes, I’ll touch on some efforts below:

Minimizing obligations. Being seasonal, my work tends to die down in July and August. We’ll see though, I’ve yet to break into the music festival scene. So I am intentionally keeping my daily commitments to as few as possible. If and when I must leave the house, I give myself plenty of time to do what I need to do. With these long stretches of Daylight Saving Time, this is more possible.

Rise early, get ‘er done. This is my biggest struggle. I just returned from a week teaching at summer camp. An exhausting experience, but extremely fulfilling. And seeing as I am no longer 22, it has taken me a full week to recover sleep wise. My body still wants to stay up late and hang out with my staff and counselors. It also wants to return my morning routine of morning walks with the dog, working out, and clearing my inbox by mid-morning. Overall, if I can fulfill my work and fitness obligations by noon I am in decent shape to have a slower rest of the day.

Tap out, or attune? The news is bad. It’s been bad. The daily horror of daily hell. Again, being in a privileged place means I am able to tap out when I can. Some would find this unacceptable. And believe me, I’ve had several discussions about this in therapy. I’ve learned the hard way that you can’t pour from an empty cup. That self-care is not a luxury, but is in fact a necessity. And if you stare into the darkness long enough it will indeed consume you. I could pile on more adages, but you get what I mean. You can call it tapping out. I call it attuning. Deliberately stopping and remembering that our brains never adapted to consuming this much bad news. There is a lot of bad, but amidst the bad there is also good. There are things that are working. That is where I must focus.

Evenings are sacred. I will happily step outside on a summer evening. The mosquitos are elated to see me. We have passed the summer solstice, and I know the days are getting incrementally shorter. To me, time seems to pause somewhere between afternoon and evening. That is the sweet spot to me. If I somehow miss that moment, I feel like I’m missing the day. 

Call it my long lost Spanish ancestry, or call it me in search of lost lazy time, but this has been my ongoing effort this summer. I have had mixed results. I was actually quite busy throughout the month of June. And as I mentioned above my week at summer camp was anything but leisurely. 

As I write these word, ConEdison has shut the power off in my house for schedule maintenance. I have almost no cell service at home, and you actually realize how the eerily quiet the house is without the constant hum of appliances running. I’ve stood up, sat down, let the dog out. I can’t really eat because I must keep the refrigerator shut. I sat with a book. I picked up my iPad to type this out because the voices in my head wanted a place to go. 

Perhaps my mind is anti-leisure.

Also, hello again. I’ve once again neglected this blog and website that I’ve had for over 26 years now. This last year-and-a-half-or-so has been about my mental health. And while I’ve managed to stay creative during a truly devastating time in my country, cranking out blog posts and social media was not part of my recovery. Seems fitting to re-enter this online space now, even if I am actively trying to remove things from my plate. I’ve tightened my social media presence, and I have no Patreon or Substack to sell you. The few eyes I might have on this blog, welcome back to my early internet style musings.

End of summer, hot fall

Like most Southern Californians, I’ve spend the last week dealing with oppressive heat. We somehow always forget that as the light begins to tilt slightly and the days shorten, suddenly it becomes unbearably hot around here. And it can stay hot into October or November. A few years ago, I planted pretty pink hyacinth in the backyard hoping for a spring bloom. They now regularly begin to emerge in November, long before the spring and sit there awkwardly as the colder months approach. A few of the plants I started way back in June are in a sort of delayed adulthood. My sunflowers live in containers and are just now starting to bloom while also being endlessly thirsty.

A few of my potted sunflowers struggling to open in this heat.

A few watering hacks for fellow gardeners with thirsty plants:

Keep a bucket of water in the sink for when you rinse produce or your hands. The excess water is perfectly fine for watering plants outside. Plus, you pay for that water so you might as well get the most out of it.

I’ve used a product called SoilMoist for a few years now. It’s a polymer that expands when watered to provide an extra supply of water when needed. Although, in this heat I’m sure it’s much needed. It says it’s safe for vegetables, but I only used it for non-edibles.

Another hack I used are terracotta watering spikes. Terracotta is porous clay and once these spikes are inserted in the soil, you can invert a glass bottle filled with water (gently, please) and the water will slowly seep through the terracotta into the thirsty soil.

I’ve written on this before, but the book I recommend for all California green thumbs is 52 Weeks in the California Garden. This book changed how I approached all of my outdoor projects with the main planting season starting in September. Fall is our spring here and the most advantageous for good results year round. I should post more updates on my gardening projects in the future.

I get a little wistful writing about the end of summer, even with the extended blazing heat. For Labor Day, I drove once again to the desert house out on the Colorado River to spend time with my aunts, uncles, and baby cousins. Talk about heat. It was about 111 degrees on regular days, most of which we spent splashing around in the water and always with a cooler full of beer and soda water nearby.

I hardly had time to take pictures or anything like that because I was mostly on guncle duty to seven-year-old twins. Besides the aforementioned time playing in the water, activities included: word searches, activity book mazes, putting together a 500 -piece jigsaw puzzle (didn’t finish), and I got to introduce them to Mad Libs. Alas, that was the last family occasion of the summer, though I may be able to squeeze a few more trips in during the warm months. That’s the good thing about the desert house being so close…

…and by close, I mean about a four-hour drive from where I live. Tell that to any Angeleno and they’d probably fly into a tizzy. Palm Springs is about as far away as most LA people can stand. While the four-hour drive doesn’t really bother me, I do fill the time with either podcasts or audiobooks. My selections this time around:

”I’m Glad My Mom Died” by Janette McCurdy – listened to on the Libby app (free library books, y’all). The title is outrageous, but earned in this memoir on the author’s life as a child actor and Nickelodeon star, her fraught relationship with her mother, and dealing with eating disorders and alcohol abuse. I was already aged out Nickelodeon during the iCarly era, but like many I so wanted to be a teen TV star like her. Many years later, so many millennials are starting to come to terms with what this meant for the child stars themselves.

The podcast Weird Medieval Guys did a four-parter on the Hundred Years War. I’m not sure how I got started listening to this podcast, but I appreciated the deep dive into this. Like anything historical, it just makes you want to dive in even deeper, especially into the enigmatic life of Joan of Arc.

Onward to a very hot fall, and what is shaping to be a busy work season for me.

Helianthus, summer suns, fire colors

Early July, my birthday month. In Southern California this means the ever earlier beginning of what we call fire season, historically reserved for dry fall months. I’m not an ecologist, but someone who is outside a lot. Someone who pays attention to the land, photographs it, and notices the ongoing changes over the years. Needless to say, growing up here we didn’t have months on end of skies amber with smoke. But that’s a post for another day.

Closeup of a yellow sunflower.
A small, but large sunflower blooming.

Independence Day fireworks came and went. I’ve passed on them yet again to mind the sanity of my dogs for the evening, plus I can’t stand the poor air quality the next day. I choose instead to admire the small sunflower bursting open in my container garden. These Helianthus have been surprisingly more work than I’m used to, needing extra care and water in an already hot summer. But the blooms I do love.

A closeup of a red sunflower.

These little summer suns. Among the fire colors I have spilling out of pots and small patches in my garden. The only fire colors I’m hoping to see in yet another year of climate records shattering. I’ll be keeping an eye on the landscape as we carry on through it.