It was a beautiful Sunday. The sky was blue. The temperature was in the seventies. All of the trees had budded and the grass was growing again. The landscape was a panorama of color with roses blooming in colors of red, orange, purple and pink. My amaryllis plants were coyly showing long stalks about to burst open with their magnificent flowers that only come twice a year. The azaleas had already been the show ponies of the garden but still held a few blossoms that heralded an early spring. The sight was as lovely as it has ever been and for me it was a kind of spiritual experience to use my bare hands to reach into the fertile soil to pull weeds away from the plants that made the space of my backyard resemble a fine garden.
Once my trimming and weeding was done I sat at the wrought iron table on the patio that was decked with ferns and potted hibiscus promising to flower any day. I felt a kind of cosmic connection to the nature around me as I watched a flock of birds fly overhead squawking all the way. A bee buzzed onto one of the roses reminding me that it was time to fill my hummingbird feeders to provide nutrition for the tiniest of creatures. I felt relaxed and happy and very close to the earth in my tiny corner of the world.
It will soon be unbearably hot where I live. If last year was any indication there will be many days languishing in the high nineties with the sun bearing down so hard that I will only be able to care from my garden for a short time before bowing to the heat. March and April are the best times for being outdoors after the dreariness and bareness of winter. May heralds the summer more quickly here than in other places. For sun seekers it is quite nice, but for me it means that my time outside will be more limited. I no longer feel like enduring the searing temperatures that put brown spots on my skin and sap my energy.
I’ve learned to do my summer time gardening early in the morning or close to sunset in the evening when the temperatures fall. Even my lovely plants protect themselves, carefully conserving their own energy by sprouting fewer blooms and curling up their leaves to protect the surface from the the rays of the sun. Only the weeds seem happy when it is so hot, proliferating faster and faster, seeming to know that I will be less and less likely to tackle them with as much gusto as I did when it was cooler.
I try to recall the times when I was young and unfazed by the soaring heat of summer. I’d spend entire days playing outside with my friends never seeming to notice how my skin was morphing into a dark tan while my face glowed with a sheen of perspiration and sheer joy. My youthful energy never waned even on the days when the mercury rose to temperatures beyond one hundred degrees. My friends and I simply kept ourselves hydrated from the water hose and sometimes soaked each other with showers of warm water just for the fun of it.
If I were not as delicate as I have seemingly become I would spend most of my days outside. It is when I am intimately connected with nature that I feel the most calm and optimistic but being an acute observer has caused me a bit of anxiety. We have more and more very hot days each year and fewer and fewer cold or cool ones.
I barely wore a coat this past winter. My outwear mostly languished in the closet. There was a time when I was walking to school that winter was brutal for weeks even here in the southern climes. By November our heaters would be working away and it would be mid March before the slow transition to spring would arrive. Summer was real for three or four months but September always brought cooler days and a season of fall that was as enjoyable as the spring.
These days summer like weather dominates the calendar. April feels like May once did and May feels more like June. The high temperatures of August bleed right into September and the warm days of October all too often keep the air conditioners working throughout the month. I worry that the natural order of things may change so drastically that I will hardly feel inclined to be outside as much as I once did. These days I am no longer acclimated to extreme heat making me worry that I will become merely an observer of the world through the lens of my glass windows. I want to feel the breezes and sit quietly as nature celebrates all around me. I want to work the soil with my hands, feel the earth in all its glory. Will such occasions slowly go away?
I hear a bird singing with such great joy as I type the words of this blog. It is a glorious symphony that I must enjoy before even the animals who live around me seek refuge from the heat, resting their voices in the shadows. Like me, they have to find respite from the searing sun. They and I will spend our mornings and our evenings before dusk living together on this beautiful land but in mid day we will both be hiding from the heat.
I know that I must do all that I can to honor and treasure the beautiful gifts of joy that nature provides me. I must care for all creatures great and small on this earth with reverence and gratitude. The wind tells me that we humans have a duty to protect and save our beautiful planet and all living things. The ever expanding heat is an alarm that warns me that our time for taking all of the loveliness of the great outdoors for granted has gone. We all have a responsibility to do whatever we can to save the beautiful days when the sky is blue, the wind is pleasant and nature is glorious.
All It Takes Is A Little Love 