Art Card #70
Wow! Nothing like the first heat waves of summer in the Carolinas to make you forget every good thought you ever had - every good intention - every high and lofty ideal! When suddenly it is a 100 degrees, nothing matters much but survival.
I think this was the first real insight I had about life in the South. In the first couple of years that I lived here, friends would come to visit from New England and wonder aloud and with fairly palpable disdain why everyone in the South is so slow! Slow moving, slow talking, and slow. In the same time period, when I went back up north to visit, I watched everyone and wondered why they were all moving so fast! And that's when it hit me. In the North, in the frozen cold, you will die if you don't scurry and hurry and bustle through the cold. In the South, in the blazing heat, you will die if you don't slow down! And sure enough, when this heat hit, I slowed down, way down. It probably doesn't help that the AC in my car is out, and I cannot bring myself to pay more than $1000 dollars to have it fixed. On the 12 mile drive home from work, I say things like: this heat is good for you, Amanda. Just drink a little more water. All this while the temperature gauge tells me it is 98 at 5:50 p.m. I tell myself these things, but I am not convinced. By the time I get home, I am totally, as they say, fried!
I generally write to you in the evenings or on soft Sundays. But for the past six weeks, I have been so busy at work and at home (ridiculously busy) and knowing that if I don't slow down, I will die in the heat, I made the decision to do less...more a consequence of my heat fatigue than a true decision. But still, worth noting. So the evenings have included a lot more television than normal: you would be amazed at what I know about America's next Top Chef, America's next Top Model, and the inner life of the characters on Glee. Oh, and of course, I balance all this out with a little Masterpiece Theater once a week and a few movies....
Did you see The King's Speech!?! Loved it.
This heat, this fatigue, and this stimulating array of TV shows have combined with the end of the fiscal year demands at work, impending budget woes for the coming year, and a million other slow motion things to leave me stymied, or sullen, or something. If nothing else...embarrassingly silent, I am barely keeping my journal...or rather, my journal has turned into a long list of what I will do when fall comes! But today, I am turning over a new leaf. A summer leaf on the eve of summer....
According to Examiner.com: "This year the summer solstice occurs on June 21 at 17 hours 16 minutes coordinated universal time (1:16 PM EDT)."
Only 20 hours of spring left and it will be official - Summer. And yes, I promise, I will continue to write to you during the hot three months ahead.
All is well here. The grand-babies are amazing, children seem to be thriving - although I imagine Emily and Will without air conditioning during heat waves in NYC and I nearly swoon (Do I sound as much like an old southern matriarch as I think I do?) - Kirsten is hanging in there, managing her pain as best she can. We celebrated our fifteenth anniversary a few days ago. Time flies. Maybe the summer will fly by too.
You know, its funny, but among all my memories of childhood summers, I hold the ones in Michigan most dear. The lakes and the river, the air, how late the sun sets, and even the crazy May Flies (or were they June bugs? swirling around the street lights). In all these memories, Belle Isle is there...the Greenhouse, the horses, my father in his MG. The day my mom, my sister, and I rode our bikes over the long hot bridge. This was when I was very small - I hadn't even learned how to coast! We moved so much that there are other summer places to recall, but I remember Detroit. I remember the long steps up to the front door of the Detroit Institute of Art. I remember the color of the sky before it rained. That strange blush of green across the clouds. Here, when it is really hot in June, July, and August, the blue sky turns white with nary a cloud in sight. But I remember the clouds, high and bright white.
Hope you are well, and bright, and fair.. I will write more very soon (this silence has been too long - and too deep). And I will do my best (dammit) to enjoy the summer.
I love you, Miss Kelly - so much.
Amanda
