I think I lost the temperament for summer. It's become an almost fearful time with storm warnings, heat warnings, brown lawns, trees dropping leaves in June, rubbish building up outside gullies after too much sudden rain the dry soil could not accommodate. There is a brief beauty in the early mornings with birds and dew in the garden. We pick the berries and the peas and reset the drip irrigation timer, a hasty cup of tea on the patio before it's already too hot, time to go indoors, close the shutters and wait for a bit of a breeze sometime after dinner. Our plan was to walk up to the top of the hill across the river for sunset on midsummer but the air was hazy, cloudy, thick with moisture, not a chance to actually see the sun. We slunk back inside and searched for distraction. Summer has become a time of unease, the signs of climate change are unmistakably there. I compare notes with birders and insect watchers and butterfly counters and wish for a magic wand.
I require myself to be hopeful. Optimism and pessimism are predictive inclinations. My predictive inclinations are rather dark. Hope is a duty. I embrace that duty.
I am still dragging a limp arm and shoulder around with me. At least I now know it's all due to hard neck muscle and I mean hard as stone. I had my first painful but effective trigger point treatment with a wonderful pep talk assuring me that I will get back to cycling and lifting and all the stuff you want to do with a proper left arm. And of course, movement and warmth. I am probably the only woman currently wearing a thick woolen scarf wrapped around neck and shoulders In.This.Heat.
The weight loss continues but my blood works are wonderfully normal. The term elongated or redundant or even tortuous colon has been mentioned. I just eat when I am hungry while R feeds me with various vitamin supplements and feeds my lab data in an Excel table. I am his current science project.
A bit of music to brighten the day.
And a few thoughts.
Is there a place you could swim? That seems like it would be beneficial to your neck and arm and cooling at the same time.
ReplyDeleteThe ten points listed about the language of climate change are spot-on.
Wearing that scarf does not sound fun! I hope the treatments work wonders and yes, as Ms. Moon said, maybe swimming?
ReplyDeleteI only feel the dread when it's unreasonably hot and/or dry. So far, this year, we're not there. I guess this is my own brand of denial, but at least I'm aware that's what it is.
I thought we were supposed to have a wet summer, as opposed to our very dry summer last year, due to El Nino. Not only are we having unprecedented temps in June, it is dry dry dry. and it's all due to human activity and the refusal to understand we are the architects of our own demise. I feel sorry for my grandchildren. we have given them an unlivable planet out of laziness and selfishness. they may not even survive. so, it's a good time to be old. and what a time, living through the extinction of our own ecosystem and the very probable extinction of our democracy.
ReplyDeleteI was very skinny for most of my life. at 5'4" my adult weight ranged from 98 to 102. I did not really experience hunger, had a high metabolism. bowl of cereal for breakfast, often skipped lunch, generally too tired to eat much dinner after a day in the studio and herding kids around. then I was diagnosed with osteoporosis and joined a gym, worked with a trainer who insisted I eat 3 times a day and a snack and I gained 20, 22 pounds and started feeling a pain in my stomach. turned out to be hunger. how weird that I didn't know what hunger felt like. anyway, I'm relating all this because you wrote you eat when you are hungry. could it be that your 'hunger' is depressed and if you ate even when not hungry that maybe that would at least stop the weight loss?
Climate change is unfolding before our eyes. It makes me so sad for our one and only beautiful planet. We do what we can to lighten our footprint but with 8 BILLION
ReplyDeleteWhoops... I hit publish before I was done. With 8 billion people on the planet it's hard to stop the disaster. Still, I wish for the best. I hope you find a way to stay cool and comfortable, Sabine. Please take care there.
ReplyDeleteI liked both your quotes, as well as the song. Thank you. Tomorrow I'm posting one of those combinations of quotes about the psycholgy of the upside down political situation with Trump. It's scary and real. But real is our earth, so climate change is really my number one concern
ReplyDeleteOh, my post is on Sunday about the political psychology stuff.
ReplyDeleteOh, I know you don't want advice. Who would? But the mother/grandmother in me won't let me go until I ask if you've tried those cans of protein drinks? Not as something you want to drink, but as a form of high calorie "medicine." Just hold your nose and slug it down. Sorry!!! You don't have to post this comment and I will understand. The last thing you need is a bunch of harebrained fans telling you what to do.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Sabine. Sending love. Always.
ReplyDeleteWeight loss has its good points, whatever hints the cancer-scale delivers. Most days I must shop at the supermarket because I forget what's needed, what will be needed, and because I'm victim of a misplaced belief that Tesco's shelves might hold a retail revelation. On days when I can "make do" with the filling station, restricting myself to The Guardian and nothing else, I walk back with the rising easterly sun behind me. Casting the outline of a thin man in his twenties, not knowing there will be unexplored good times ahead and, more important - I think I can fairly say this from the reassuring interior of my time-warp machine - they will outweigh the bad times. With my six-month hair growth recently scythed to the bone I note that this thin man has a thin neck and that this may appeal to others walking in the other direction, their sight hindered by the sun's energy. Can a shadow -a silhouette - be considered handsome? Perhaps not but, if so, may it also not be unhandsome? I would like to be desirable for the next 50 metres of pavement. Nothing more. Hey, a minor discovery: my shadow walks jauntily. And that's a step in the right direction.
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