Summer nights are like indelible ink - black, deep blue, forever. I feel carried away by the deepening darkness to other times in my life, always achingly summer. I can transport myself to places and times long past simply by opening my spirit to the night air, sky and shadows.
In the liquid evening, there are sounds of mothers calling children in from days of hard play, laughter and popsicles. Screen doors slam and it is 1959. My baby brother is four months old, Mark is four, I am going to be six in three weeks. We are plunked into the tub to soak away the sand and grit of beach or sandbox, dried off and dressed in lightweight seersucker pyjamas and nightgown respectively. One red lifesaver each, a drink; I will my eyes to stay open until it's first star wish time. Rarely do they cooperate.
Lights of all colours, strung from tree to tree come on down the street and laughter rings out from the patio. It is 1965, my twelfth birthday, and all the kids from the block are at the Healy's house. We are all ages, from Robert's age of eighteen down, and there is a record player and 45s for us to dance to. I swear sometimes that Kim Mitchell's song was written about that night - the nervous boys and girls, lemonade or punch to drink, but it's the Righteous Brothers and Billy Joe Royal I remember more than Bobby Vinton's "Blue On Blue". Am I really dancing with a boy to "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'"? The night is so warm, my cotton sleeveless dress is damp from fast dances and I'm so self-conscious as Kenny pulls me a little closer and sings along. It's over before I can believe it, and he's off to ask someone else to dance, and I am more relieved than anything.
Tires give a little squeal on the loose gravel before gripping the scorching pavement. That sound lands me in 1970, the year before my grad year from high school. My mother is pregnant at age 38, and I in my teenage mind think she has done this deliberately so I'll have to babysit forever. But sweet freedom is mine for all the summer nights because I have the car and can cruise with friends, or alone which I sometimes prefer. The moon follows all of our roads, windows rolled all the way down, radio turned all the way up. We are all in the same garb, long, center-parted hair, blue jean bell bottoms, t-shirts and water buffalo leather sandals. Seventeen means there's beer at parties and everyone gets high. Almost.
After a brilliant aquapeachgoldpink sunset at the bay shore, the stars come out one by one until the velvet dark sky is studded with a bazillion diamonds. Is it 1988 already? I'm peaceful in my heart, and my five-year old snuggles against me on a blanket beside our car. We are trying to see the shapes of the constellations and this wondrous little person knows many names from books that we have read and charts that we have looked at. "Cassiopoeia, Mommy! And Orion's Belt." We are a pair now, just the two of us, and we're going to be just fine.
A fish jumps just to the right of the dock on a sultry, navy-blue night, and a gentle voice whispers words of love and intimacy beside my ear. In one another's embrace, wrapped in a thick down comforter against the chill of late August's rehearsal for autumn, we kiss, look into each other's eyes and make promises that neither of us is certain we can keep. Our intentions are pure, our passion unquestionable, and I feel safer than I recall feeling, ever, before or since.
Summer nights feel like all these times rolled together into one beating, grateful heart. My heart.
I have to write things down.
My very full, distractible (see last post) brain just cannot hold all the things I want to write about for longer than a goldfish's, and some of my best ideas come and go like the scarce rains of this summer. When did I get out of the habit of having a notebook with me everywhere I go? Or a least scraps of paper to jot down a snippet of overheard conversation or a scene that is story fodder?
Maybe I have become over-confident in my memory's ability to snag and hold ideas. I know sometimes when I am researching something on the web, I open a new tab to find a related post and forget almost at once what it was I came for, sort of like walking into a room in my house with great purpose until I stop and say, "Wait. What am I here for?" It's frustrating, but in conversations with others I find that I am far from the only one.
It's useless for me to try to retrieve the neural signal by concentrating harder. The more I struggle, the more elusive the idea gets. I retrace. It was a quote I read that got me pondering the complexities of . . . what? Arrghhhh. I tell myself to relax, clear my mind and it will come back. Sometimes in the fullness of time, it does. Sometimes, nada.
Deep breath. OK. I am going to strategically place notebooks and pens wherever I spend time -- in my handbag, in the car, by my bed, in the kitchen and maybe even the bathroom. (I do some fine thinking in there by times.) When the thought or inspiration comes, it will have no chance of escaping into the fargone-osphere anymore! (credit to my former husband for that word; it's where every lost thing ever goes.)
Wish me luck.
I get distracted.
If you know me, you get that. If you married me, you knew that coming in. If I gave birth to you, you really know that.
Could I call it Attention Deficit Disorder? In the best sense of the terminology flung about so readily these days, I suppose so. Having worked thirty plus years in the field of education, I know that the diagnosis rarely means the inability to pay attention, but the tendency to pay attention to everything, all the time. I think of it more as being pulled, drawn in . . . every sensory input requires acknowledgement and so I hear all the conversations within earshot, I see the tiniest movement of that branch . . . WAIT! Do I smell cinnamon? The fabric of that cushion on the display sofa is just begging me to caress it with my fingers, nay . . . both hands.
Sometimes the world is just much too interesting to get all my focus on the very thing or person that I am supposed to or wish to be attending to. This blog for example. So, I have about four other tasks, all pleasant ones, on hold while I write this entry, and I am laughing at my confession to you thinking that you do this too, in some regard.
It's not pure procrastination nor lack of my muse visiting. Oh she visits, all right! When I want to sleep, drive, grocery shop, garden, have tea with a friend, she visits, unbidden and I write and write. But rarely on my blog, to my chagrin and to that of a few of my dear followers who I fear must have long forgotten and/or abandoned me. And who would blame them . . .?
Living in the moment with mindfulness and gratitude almost requires one to be sensorily driven. How could I forego the minutes scratching my dogs' silken ears for anything else? I have the liberty to do nothing besides listen to Andrea Bocelli's voice for a whole hour if I so choose. Why would I multitask and do several things badly when I can just stop and look? Look and see the indescribable deep coral rose colour of the poppies in the vase on the coffee table?
Distractions as some would call them are everywhere -- the internet, Facebook and Pinterest, phone calls and people in store lineups, photo opportunities in a ditch or orchard. Other people's babies in strollers, elderly faces with the wisdom of the ages on bodies bent by work and time; books, shops and photographs. I look at all the lighted windows down any road at night when we drive past, and wonder about the lives being lived in those houses. I don't want to miss any of it.
When I am brought back sharply at times from one of these moments, I'm often caught off guard by what else is happening, what someone has just asked me, or the cover rattling on a boiling pot that I've momentarily overlooked. How can all of this be happening at the same time? I want to concentrate on the smell of this fresh cut lemon. I want to feel and hear and taste it all. I want to will my eyes to take it all in, the beauty and the ugliness. To commit it to memory and savour it.
Lights of all colours, strung from tree to tree come on down the street and laughter rings out from the patio. It is 1965, my twelfth birthday, and all the kids from the block are at the Healy's house. We are all ages, from Robert's age of eighteen down, and there is a record player and 45s for us to dance to. I swear sometimes that Kim Mitchell's song was written about that night - the nervous boys and girls, lemonade or punch to drink, but it's the Righteous Brothers and Billy Joe Royal I remember more than Bobby Vinton's "Blue On Blue". Am I really dancing with a boy to "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'"? The night is so warm, my cotton sleeveless dress is damp from fast dances and I'm so self-conscious as Kenny pulls me a little closer and sings along. It's over before I can believe it, and he's off to ask someone else to dance, and I am more relieved than anything.
Tires give a little squeal on the loose gravel before gripping the scorching pavement. That sound lands me in 1970, the year before my grad year from high school. My mother is pregnant at age 38, and I in my teenage mind think she has done this deliberately so I'll have to babysit forever. But sweet freedom is mine for all the summer nights because I have the car and can cruise with friends, or alone which I sometimes prefer. The moon follows all of our roads, windows rolled all the way down, radio turned all the way up. We are all in the same garb, long, center-parted hair, blue jean bell bottoms, t-shirts and water buffalo leather sandals. Seventeen means there's beer at parties and everyone gets high. Almost.
