The Joy of Iced Tea

Hot days hang on forever when you are living them.  

91F and standing in the late day sun. Your neck swivels your head as far as it will turn to look for shade or liquid refreshment. Some days neither is to be found. But some days there are victories.

Today with no shade in sight your mind’s eye remembers a big old shade tree, a park picnic bench and a glass of ice tea. Sweating from the cold tea the glass is filled with ice to the brim. A wood bench painted cedar red rests in the shade ‘neath the tree. Having adjusted your butt to the hard wood seat up go the polarized shades to the top of your head. Squinting to see through the shimmering heat on the concrete parking lot across the way you hope there is someone who might give you a ride the rest of your walk. Sure enough there's 63 Impala with all your friends ready to head off down the road.

Yeah days like that are memorable. But today there is no park, no parking lot, no ride, no shade and no ice tea.  Don’t worry you will find you way to there, to that cool shaded place, before it is over.

Sunburns, t-shirts soaked with sweat, the buzzing of insets around the bushes at the edge of the park; each one of them is a different part of the memory of a summer day.  Ice tea, well there just isn’t anything like it to refresh a body, or to quench a thirst acquired from even a short walk.   

I am a sliced lemon on the lip of the glass kind of person on really hot days.  Tartness without any sugar makes ice tea just so darn cooling.

In six months will we be begging for days like this.  Take today as it is and savor it.

Revisit

I am cleaning out my iPhone notes. I  found this. I  may have put it up before but what the hell it is great to absorb even a second time 

I do not love you except because I love you; 
I go from loving to not loving you, 
From waiting to not waiting for you 
My heart moves from cold to fire. 

I love you only because it's you the one I love; 
I hate you deeply, and hating you 
Bend to you, and the measure of my changing love for you 
Is that I do not see you but love you blindly. 

Maybe January light will consume 
My heart with its cruel 
Ray, stealing my key to true calm. 

In this part of the story I am the one who 
Dies, the only one, and I will die of love because I love you, 
Because I love you, Love, in fire and blood.

by Pablo Neruda

Be Kind in Your Mind

Best thing I heard on the radio this morning was this tidbit of wisdom. "Once we begin treating other people's lives as entertainment, i.e., when we find humor in their falls, their sufferings and their foibles as spread wide, bright and loud on YouTube we're turning people into something less than human and we really have to be concerned about that." Be a decent person today, don't click on that link.

Estimated Time of Departure

The hour at which one departs can vary the experience of the journey immensely. As little as 15 minutes of delay can increase the air temperature by three or 4°.  Additionally the traffic Increases ! exponentially

Although my hearing is diminished I can hear the trilling and chirping of birds everywhere along with the crunch of acorns under my feet. Despite how "modern" our modern age is become newspapers still wait expectantly for their purchasers to retrieve them wearing only a bathrobe.

I have never been a morning person. But my walks to my office over this summer have been taken with my eyes wide open. My steps through the green canopy above these neighborhoods have convinced me that this is a very beautiful time of day.

The Old Man

I posted this yesterday on Facebook.  I dictated it as I walked and took pictures with my smartphone.  It seemed a waste to just leave it on that transient forum.

“My street is quiet and still this morning. We are enveloped in relatively cool air. The light is falling through the trees at a different angle than it took a month ago. Make no doubt about it this is still summer but the onset of fall it's not far off.

My walks over the past couple of months have been joyful. They have been showing me my neighbors little joys. There is something quite affirming in the fact that everyone wants a special little thing to make their space their own.

Some people dream of the pure land. Some people dream of heaven with all its attributes described in their beloved Bible. What I dream of is a little more time to walk the streets and alleyways of this full and beautiful world.”

In response to my post my cousin noted the following:

“This took me back to Ocean City when Mel and I would be sitting in the kitchen nook and your Dad would go walking slowly down the alley way behind Central Ave....every morning.....just walking & smoking, and seemingly in deep thought.....no camera......just made me think how much he must have enjoyed "taking it all in", as well.......”

I responded,

“You are so correct about the correlation between my father’s walks and my own. While I haven’t had a cigarette in 30 + years I think I started taking my walks when I was smoking. 

Back then the alleyways of OCNJ were a different world from the main streets. For my health I quit smoking, Still, the walk has always remained part of my routine. For a time my exercise was obtained riding a bicycle.  I went back to walking because you miss too much. Me I try to shift my walking routes. I try to see all of what is going on but with my myopic vision it doesn’t always work.

I also have my father’s shall we call it approachability. People will see me and just start talking to me. Also I don’t mind striking up a conversation with most any person. I know I lot of special people from the buses in Lansing because of that. I through the years have also met some really wonderful people just through casual conversations.

I offer just a short note from one of my walks. When I travel I usually get up in the morning and leave the hotel seeking some kind of coffee and pastries. I was in I think Lake Louise Alberta and had taken a path down across a little bridge to get to the “best” donut shop per the concierge. 

At the bakery my senses were awash in aromas of cinnamon and chocolate and vanilla. The smell was so good I got a food high as I entered the building. As I looked around there was a tour bus driver was just topping off his coffee. I started joking with him about how it must get boring having to dodge those big horn sheep that wander onto the Icefields Parkway. He laughed. I then asked him a question that was essentially if he wasn’t driving a bus what would he personally go see on the drive.

The man in the grey tour guide’s uniform did not hesitate. He directed me to a waterfall that was off the beaten path. In fact it was so off the beaten path there was a point that you made a turn that was so tight by backing up and twisting your wheels on a landing to accomplish the task. Long story short the waterfall was just amazing. Guess what, if I didn’t take my walks and if I didn’t talk to people I would have missed something special. 

Yeah I owe the old man that. While we had some major differences watching him and mirroring his behaviors made me at least part of what I am today.”

Another day another walk

Life is full of adversity. It's the can't dos and the won't be able tos that trip us up and bring us to a state of being ill at ease.  But life has a fire and a desire to exist and prevail.

There are beautiful trees and the wonderful flowers that I photograph each day. These teach us that with nurturing and care some things can grow into incredibly beautiful specimens

But look down some time today. No matter where you're standing there will be some kind of flora pushing its way through the macadam, the concrete, or the brick pavers. Life has a will to be.

We human beings are cosmic weeds. In the battle between entropy and the weeds I hope we prevail.

From a High Window

Last night I dreamed. My mind's taking of odd little pathways through that nether region, a space that lies between waking and dark slumber, is nothing unusual. Often I travel  expansive journeys in that space. Behind fluttering eyelids before the flooding of morning light I see the what ifs. It is like looking at a world shrouded in fog from a high window.

Often in that land behind the mirrors of my day just passed my mind strings together those issues at the top of my consciousness mixing them with the collective common wisdom stored somewhere in my brain's recesses. Apparently my mind tries to offer me knowledge I have forgotten or hidden away.

Last night I dreamed I was riding a bicycle across a broad university campus. The campus was woven with pathways and several copse of trees. There was a small river that ran through it. I was peddling my bicycle furiously; I must've been late for something like an exam or  meeting someone.

Suddenly in the midst of my path there was a pile of broken up concrete. I could have wound my way through it but it would've taken time, time I did not have.

To avoid the loss of time I took a less travelled path which if it had been opened would've put me at the place I was headed smack dab at the exact minute I was to be there. The path was thin and more wooded. There on the trail as it narrowed I came upon an even greater pile of rocks. This pile was one so massive and so oddly situated that I could not pass aside it or climb over.

I woke.

Seems to be in my mind was telling me to take on the difficulties that may come. I mean it sounds like the perfect metaphor for saying address the small conquerable tasks and don't avoid them.  If you don't what you will come upon next may be insurmountable due to delay.

Dreams are funny like that.

I am so glad I am not on the school board anymore. I  used to have dreams like this all the time.

As Day Ends

Last night we ate dinner out by the fire pit in our back yard.  My belief is that it is the first time we have done it this year.  Up until a few days ago the bugs were just too aggressive.  Wet days in early summer brought hordes of mosquitoes. But that was then, they have faded away now.

Pork finished on the grill, grilled yellow squash and Spanish rice were the major portions of the meal.  The food was pleasing to the eyes and the aromas just a pleasure. Settling down for the meal around the glass patio table the evening was warm but not humid, a nice change. 

My children ate like the raptors they are. Maybe five minutes lapsed. They ate the food that took an hour hurriedly.  Eat and then off back to the electronic media, no other choice for them. My wife took some coals from the Weber grill and dropped them on wood that had accumulated in the fire pit.  Our lot is surrounded by trees and thus we like everyone else I know have a brush pile.  What can you do but burn it?

The branches and leaves caught quickly.  I took the little blue tooth speaker and played instrumental versions of Grateful Dead songs as the flames of the fire licked at the night air.  The smell of the burning wood, the feel of sitting out in a chair in the yard, the sound of a pianist noodling away on her rendition of Eyes of the World, well these are the things of summer delight.  It doesn’t get much better than this.