Summer and I were having another chat the other day. You know Summer, she comes in June and stays until the end of August. I’m telling her about the bugs and the heat and the humid air and the sun burns and the rattlesnakes she brings along and how it makes for a giant minus side to her stay. She squints her eye, figuratively of course, and points out that she and Earth put up with gallons of bug spray, sun screen, exhaust from recreation vehicles and boats, piles of party trash and lord knows what else, like the horrendous and scary things we light up on the Fourth of July.
She has a point. We could try harder to have a care about the destruction we’re capable of when we’re having fun. Summer offered a slogan, which I reluctantly pass along: Be more of an animal and less like a party animal.
I’m feeling a little used as I realize Summer has tricked me into mounting a soap box for Earth. Before she has a chance to slide in another slogan, and I can just see her saying “Earth–love her or leave her!,” I collect my weeder and trimmer and trowel, dump the weeds in the green bin and head back to the house and out of the H-E-A-T.
ode to summer made me laugh. i am sweltering in the heat and humidity in the boathouse this afternoon…wish she'd crank up the breeze a notch. i think i see fog coming up over the city…