When a summer day is full, sleep comes quickly and easily.
If it fills your mind with the present moment – the sun, the heat, the flowers, the books, the pool, the garden, the grilled dinner, the first cherry tomatoes just starting to ripen and the thrill of popping one into your mouth directly off the vine – then the day has proven worthwhile.
I’ve had the luck and luxury of having some pretty full days of late – not with any grand adventures or big events, but the simple summer living that the season affords. It’s the best way of dealing with overthinking and overanalyzing – which Virgos such as myself are prone to do to our great detriment. Finding solace in being mindful and present instead of living in my head has proven a boon to my mental health. Summer makes that easier.
After working out and meditating and just making it through a recent day, I slipped into the pool, not bothering with a swimsuit, just pulling off my shorts and wading in with this old pair of underwear that wouldn’t mind getting a bit bleached. Swimming from the shallow end to the deep, I breathe in the scents of evening.
The spicy sweetness of phlox hangs in the air near the deep end. Nearby, the smell of damp earth fresh from being watered reminds me of some almost-fetid greenhouse dripping with its own condensation – plants sometimes have a way of sweating too, transpiration to our perspiration.
Even this late in the day, the sky is a sickly hazy yellowish gray color – still lit from the sun’s rays slicing through the smoke in the air from the Canadian fires – seemingly an annual summer event in a world that burns itself out a bit more with each passing day. I dive underwater to get away from it all, because I cannot afford to think about this world like that too much – humans being so problematic, and so disappointing.
