Heat Day

I've thought many times in the years since I returned to the Frozen North that snow days are a gift: a way of forcing everyone affected to stay home and bake cookies with the kids, play cards, put together a puzzle, and if the storm moves off quickly enough, get outside in fresh snow together and walk, shovel, ski or just clear the driveway. A snow day has a wonderful way of shortening a to-do list.

So as the temperatures here today approached 100, why am I thinking of snow days? It seems to me that maybe there's a seasonal opposite, a "heat day" of sorts. And too often, because we have the priviledge of artificially tampering with the temperature via air conditioning, we miss the opportunity to take advantage of these ultra-hot summer days.

I was forced to shorten my list today because of the heat -- and because yesterday my air conditioner decided to go on strike. Apparently I'm in good company, because the repair people can't make it here until Wednesday. As a result I've had to remember how to live the way my family used to when I was a child, the way generations did before air conditioning became ubiquitous.

That means I was up early to open windows and let the house cool down as much as possible. I was done with anything in the kitchen involving heat by 8 am. I was done with yardwork before 10. I had run my only errand by 11. And by 1 pm, I was napping on the couch.

Plans to bike, bake a rhubarb pie, trim tree branches and dig weeds melted. I let myself eat ice cream before dinner to cool off a bit. (Besides, my appetite is lousy when I'm too warm. Maybe warm weather is a natural means of weight control, as well...)

Because my house is too warm to sit in, I've been out in my backyard for a couple hours in the breeze reading, writing and listening to my wind chimes. I started the sprinkler a while ago and have made a pair of cardinals in my apple tree very happy with the free shower. They're lovely to watch, such bright red peeking out from the green leaves, and wonderful to hear, too. Earlier I saw a yellow female oriole -- mostly just because I had time to look.

Yes, I know falling asleep in such a warm house may be difficult -- thank heaven for basements that stay cool. But I have to think there's a purpose in this, a message I'm supposed to hear about slowing down and letting the season do its thing without any artificial contrivances like air conditioning.

Focus

I'm feeling pulled in two directions lately -- not in the sense of being unable to make a decision and move forward, but in the sense of where I focus: in the past or in the future. It's a balancing act I didn't anticipate.

I'm generally a forward-focused person: learn what you can from the past, then leave it behind and keep moving. There's always something around the next bend, even when you can't see it clearly. But with all the transitions my daughters and I will see in the next few months, it feels like it's time to take a few... days? weeks?... to sit back and look at the changes, growth, challenges, the highs and lows of the past 11 years and take stock.

Some of the transitions we're facing are well-defined: a high school graduation and the start of a college career; another high school trek beginning; the end of the school year and a shift to summer schedules and attiudes. Other transitions feel less tangible, but still urgent: re-examining my life and career goals, establishing new routines and priorities to meet those goals; assessing one daughter's emotional health and progress, and making sure her first, crucial year of high school is smooth and productive; making sure the other daughter has what she needs, physically and emotionally, to launch into the early adult portion of her life.

For me, usually these kinds of introspective transitions happen more in the fall, but this year, the added daylight and the warmth seem to be opening up things in my mind that are begging to be fully explored and mapped. For my own goals I want a future focus, and I've even set aside time -- actual vacation days! -- to map out my thoughts. I've decided there should be no boundaries at this point -- dream big. Maybe I shouldn't be so invested in my day job. Maybe I should place more emphasis on eating well, on spending my time and energy in ways that have a bigger pay-off. Maybe I should re-prioritize and let the yardwork go and set a deadline for finishing the outline of that novel. Maybe, as my daughters reach these milestones of increasing importance, it's hitting me that I'm at a very different stage of my life -- but it's still a stage that is crying out for some visualization and planning. In that sense, my girls and I are in similar circumstances.

As I've looked at all of my "top priorities" over the past several days (how many of those can one person have at a time?), I've sometimes felt scattered and frozen. But I'm discovering that as questions and dreams have danced around in my head over the past few weeks, the weak ones fall away and only the strongest few continue to take shape. I'm learning that maybe focus isn't so much an effort of will as it is the art of learning patience.