Notes from the Spring Creek Arts Guild

I’m writing this before sunrise on the last day of August. As soon as there is a little light outside, I will be on my front porch with my coffee. I love being outside listening and watching as the night shift settles in for a rest and the day shift starts to stir around; also it is the coolest part of the day, which has not been all that cool lately. The closely watched weather forecast on my phone says we have two cold fronts coming this week, bringing with them a chance of rain. I know that the autumnal equinox, the true end of summer, is still three weeks away, but I am so happy to be over the hump of summer and over the certitude of blisteringly hot and dry days. This last push of days over 100 degrees has been cruel.

In the meantime, I pick up my phone to scroll through Instagram. There I see my Insta-friends in England and Ireland have gotten out their wool sweaters and rain boots and are complaining that their abundance of green tomatoes still on the vine need warmth and sunlight to ripen, fearing that may never happen. I walk out to my garden and think as soon as it is not quite so hot, I need to pull up the brown and grasshopper-eaten tomato plants.

As much as I complain about summers here, I am not at all sure I would do well in a place like England. It certainly is a nice fantasy to think of winning the lottery so I could just pick up and move someplace cool for the duration of the seriously unpleasant part of summer, but I am wondering if the scorching heat and relentless sun kind of re-set something, the way the freezes of winter do with many things in nature. The heat certainly takes out the most vulnerable of the animals and plants. I wonder if, even with all of us running from air conditioner to air conditioner, if it burns something out of us that needs to be burnt out every now and again.

I also think, having lived almost my entire life in the area between the thirtieth and thirty-fifth latitudes, I would not be able to make adjustments to variance in lengths of days and nights that would come with living so much closer to a pole. If the sun is up, I am up, and vice-versa. Light-blocking curtains help not at all. My brain just seems to know. Conversely, in the winter, I have problems convincing my brain that I really cannot go to bed before eight at night. Can you imagine what a struggle I would have trying to do the basic things in life if sunrise was at eight and sunset was just before four? My friend told me the people in Ireland drink tea like it is water; maybe they do that to keep them from hibernating for a few months.

Now the first light is showing outside. Time for another cup of coffee and my front porch rocker. Happy last few weeks of summer 2020 to all of you!

SpringCreekArtsGuild@ gmail.com