Tag: Summer

Heat

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It’s smokin’ hot outside. End of August, usually cooling down by now, a bit. The Amazon is burning. On August 18th Iceland held a funeral for Okjökull glacier, its first to disappear due to climate change. It’s hot outside but not as hot as next summer or the one after that.

And yet, life continues. The stock market makes the news. Presidential hopefuls discuss health care, taxes, tariffs, and sometimes the climate. Babies are born. Kids start school. We drive and eat and cook and camp and make things and go to work because, what else can we do?

The iceberg had been hit but we are all still on the boat and so the band plays on.

I planted a garden in the spring and, besides watering daily, proceeded to mostly ignore it. And yet, it grew. Chard, kale, tomatoes, basil, beets, and carrots. So forgiving.

How to stay engaged when it is all so big, so staggeringly big and important? What to do when it seems there’s nothing to be done? Small choices. Unplug your plugs. No more beef. Grow veggies. Hang laundry to dry. Use a ceiling fan. Ban plastic.

Lately I spend more time with young children and their parents than ever in the past. They have an optimism, out of necessity, that I latch on and cling to. No time for cynicism.

Keep going. Nature has a way of balancing and renewing. In this case I don’t know what that will look like but, don’t give up!

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Summmmmer.

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For the first time in fifteen years, I am having a summer vacation. Like the analog kind I remember from the 1980’s and early 90’s, pre- summer jobs. Hence the infrequent posts. The heat has turned off my ability to think clearly and I find myself wanting to read other’s words (books!!) rather than write my own.

Pools, oceans, tents, hikes, streams, hammocks, books, gardens…

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Zucchini in the spiralizer, steamed lightly with tomatoes, basil, pine nuts and roasted chicken.  Smoothies blended with chard from the garden, peaches, and ice.

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Two weeks on Cape Cod, living out the summer of my daydreams. Ponds, rope swings, bike paths, and ice cream.  Surfer’s crowd each other as rare summer waves make an appearance on a Friday evening in Rhode Island. Thai food eaten in a VW bus in the parking lot at sunset.

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Small wooden sailboats in a harbor, near Woods Hole, MA. I love them.

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I’m home now. Late summer is upon us. Two weeks until school begins, though that feels exceedingly early. It’s hot and muggy in the desert. The monsoons are here. No plans to travel this fall, at least not far. Routine and rhythm kick back in. Jobs call. Vintage clothing to be photographed and sold. The occasional film set beckons.

It’s been a sweet summer dream. And now a new one begins.

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Summer

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Strangely delicious Italian food in Gila Bend, Arizona, after a quick post drive dip in the pool.

A bunny stops, silhouetted in the light of San Elijo State Beach’s bathroom, and stares a me, frozen, and I begin to brush my teeth.

It’s been years since I’ve been camping. Lattes, croissants, and groceries a short walk away, just over the PCH and the train tracks. Not the camping I’m used to. Each night I sleep better than the night before, traffic and trains blurring into white noise. I envy the kids’ ability to shut it out completely.

Red eyes from days of sun and salt.

S’mores.

A quick detour to Williams, Arizona, on the drive home. The Grand Canyon in its late morning, early summer glory. The perfect knife found in a general store.

Open roads, canyons, beaches, and picnics.

The first summer I can remember spending off of a film set in a very long time.

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Weekend

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Wet legs. Sandy feet. Salty hair. Unplug. Drive west. Breathe deep. Get burned. Sit in traffic. $20 to park. Watch the longboard competition. Calm down. Another deep breath. 83 degrees. Cool breeze, salty air. Sunday. Enjoy. If you enjoy these posts, please follow Smagik.com and please comment and share.

Heat

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It’s upwards of 110 degrees throughout much of Los Angeles county today and I have spent the day either in nearby businesses that have AC, reading in a bathtub of cold water, or in my apartment wearing a dress I keep wetting in the sink. The only solid foods I’ve eaten in two days are chips and guacamole, to go with my smoothies and ice cream; heat apparently turns me into a dietary child. I have at times had to work outside in similar temperatures and today I am grateful to be off but worried for all of the gardeners, construction, film, and road workers (among others) who are sweating it out outside. And, I can’t help but wonder, as each year gets hotter than the last and heat records continue to be shattered, how will we, as a species, cope? Already we are seeing mass migration due to war, violence, poverty, and climate change, but we are just at the beginning of the tipping point. Drought, wildfire, flooding, and famine will become more normal than they already are and the coming generations won’t know a time when they weren’t. Are these the good old days, the ones we are living in right now, at this moment? Are these the times we will reminisce about, back to when a 112 degree day made the news, because it was still abnormal? I think about my eight year old nephew and my friend’s three month old baby girl and wonder if they will experience and remember summer as a time for camping, slip and slides, and ice cream? Will there be snow to build snowmen or snowballs with in the winter? I wake in the middle of the night with a weight on my chest at the thought that these really could be the days we look back fondly upon. Where will billions of people go when their crops turn to dust or their neighborhoods disappear under several feet of water? The migration we see now will seem tiny in comparison, and as usual it will be those with the fewest resources who suffer the most and pay the biggest price. Today is Scott Pruitt’s (the pathetic head of the Environmental Protection Agency) last day and for now he will be replaced by the equally unqualified former energy lobbyist, Andrew Wheeler. How men who have children and grandchildren can deny climate change without giving it even the benefit of a doubt, I will never understand. Greed. Greed followed by willful ignorance. While visiting Amsterdam in 2014, I stumbled on a fantastic, huge, multi level bookstore of which almost one third seemed to be about, or in some way related to, climate change. With an average elevation of 2 meters, but with much of the city sitting below sea level, the Dutch are keenly aware of the precarious spot they occupy on earth. One might wonder why the people of New Orleans, Miami, and New York City don’t seem so worried, or why all Americans just seem to be going along, waiting, wondering if and when it will get worse. It’s overwhelming to realize that the beautiful planet that sustains and nourishes us on every level could cease to do so. And equally overwhelming to realize we have created this disaster and that our elected officials continue to perpetuate it. I don’t know what the answer is, other than to do what we can. Support local and small scale farmers, live in small, energy efficient homes, drive small gas efficient cars, resist the policies that take us closer to the tipping point of no return, support public transportation, bike, spend our dollars wisely, investigate, research, stop eating beef, support solar and wind energy, conserve water… it all makes a difference. I don’t want to look back on now as the good, old days. I want our kids and grandkids to have it even better than we did. I know you do too. Stay cool out there!If you enjoy these posts, please follow Smagik.com and please share and comment!

Sun Tea

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 It is hot! 105 in Albuquerque yesterday, with the same expected today. And, after such a cool, rainy spring, I think we are all in shock, though June is usually the month where it reaches triple digits for a week or two, so we really shouldn’t be. Today I plan to make mint sun tea, write a short story, meet a friend at the pool, and be grateful that for the first time in over a decade, I am not outside, working on a film set in this heat! 

Producers love to shoot in New Mexico in the summer; long days full of amazing skies, desert vistas stretching for miles, 16 hours before you lose the light.  Pouring water over my head, wrapping a wet bandana around my neck, reapplying sunscreen again and again, holding the wool coats and petticoats of actors too hot to wear them, lugging garment bags up a mountain or into a canyon, eating bananas for the potassium, waiting for the sun to go down, trying to drink even half as much water as I should. 

Early in my career, I wore skirts and light blouses, but after ruining too many, switched to shorts and tee shirts, but after getting too much sun, switched to high tech UV fabric clothing that I rinse out each night, same outfit day after day, no skin showing. Only when the director goes down with heat stroke, do people slow and drink a Gatorade. 

I think of my dad, building a house out in the country. Watermelon for lunch, gallons of water sweated out, like a cleanse, year after year working through the summer. And of all the farm workers, road crews, and walking mail deliverers, working in the heat. My grandmother would meet her mailman at the door with a glass of lemonade. 

And six months from now, I might be writing the same post for cold. Bitter  and biting. Seems unimaginable now. 

Stay cool out there!

Rocky Mountain High

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I just returned from a quick, weekend trip north to Colorado, with my mom. Combining the desires to get out of town, visit family, check out some art, and maybe buy some legal pot, we took highway 285 instead of the quicker I-25 and wove our way from the high desert into the Rocky Mountains.  

  

We arrived in Denver just in time to check into our hotel before heading to meet my friend Brendan Picker at The Big Blue Bear. Picker is a Public Art Coordinator and, among other things, leads groups on public art walking tours through downtown Denver. For one hour, we were led by grates in the pavement that played interesting sounds, murals, statues, and other very cool pieces made to be enjoyed by the public, but frequently overlooked. For more info on these tours (and for info on artists) go to ArtsandVenues.com

   
 

The next morning, we left for Boulder and a stroll down memory lane. We drove by the Victorian house where my parents were married, barefoot, in the backyard and which they then proceeded to almost burn down while dipping beeswax candles in the dining room. Then, onto the falafel stand on the Pearl Street Mall and another driveby of the house where my sister was born and we grew corn in the backyard.

  
By Saturday, we were in Fort Collins and after buying some beautiful pieces from Made In Ceramics, at the French Nest Market, decided to see what all of the hoopla was about the shops now selling legalized, recreational marijuana. Well, it wasn’t as easy as we New Mexicans had been led to believe! After going to two shops which had either recently closed or only sold to those with a medical card, we finally ended up at what looked like any other college head shop. After checking our IDs, we were led into a back room behind a locked door and told to wait our turn. It all felt very illegal. Once it was our turn, two salesman were very helpful and suggested several types that might help with my ongoing insomnia. We’ll see! 

In the ten years since my grandmother passed, I’ve spent very little time in Colorado. A wedding here or weekend there. But it’s fun to remember that though it will always mean summertime, picking cherries, cool basements, rollerblading with my sister, frozen yogurt pie, baseball games, cousins, camping, high snowy peaks, smell of cut grass, nostalgia, and childhood to me, it is also a gorgeous, fun place just a few hours north, ready to be explored all over again. 

  

  

Just Be. 

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I’ve been off for almost a month and, besides attending the writing class I signed up for, feel that I’ve done very little of what I set out to accomplish with this time.  I haven’t consistently gone to yoga or organized my studio or sat in my studio and made a bunch of stuff like I’d planned. 

But, what I have done is begin to calm down, get still, and just be. I bought a hammock and a stack of books, which I devour by the week. It reminds me of the summer between 7th and 8th grade when I sat on the front porch rationing pages of “Gone with the Wind” until finally it had to end, at which point I simply started it again. Somewhere along the way, reading went from necessity to luxury in my life and this summer I plan to reverse that trend.  

After living on the adrenaline high of a film set for months, it can be difficult to see how being is just as important as doing, if not more so. One month into my “self funded sebattical” and I’m only beginning to unwind. I look at the titles that caught my eye in the bookstore and I see a theme- stillness.  It is where we find the answers and the inspiration.  The answer being that our only job is to be our most authentic selves and that once we understand that, all else will fall into place. I like what these ladies are saying. 

In addition to reading, I’ve been gardening, cooking, and meditating; all things that are quickly ignored and forgotten when life gets crazy and chaotic, but which do more for my health than all of the supplements, acupuncturists, and massages combined. 

As I lie here wondering how to make a living from reading, swinging, writing, creating, traveling, and imagining, I realize that’s not for me to figure out. All I need is to keep doing the things I enjoy, make time and space for them, and trust that the next little clue will appear if I’m still enough to notice.