I am missing New York something fierce tonight. It was an incredibly hot day; one where my temper was as fierce as the weather. Then we had another tropical rainstorm which lingered into evening–not very tropical but I guess welcome.
My garden has been suffering. There are some potted plants that need to be watered maybe six times a day in this heat and I just can’t, but when it rain inches in an hour or two, the rain overwhelms the plants.
This summer isn’t a “nobody remembers one like this,” but there hasn’t been one with so many consecutive hot days. It does cool down a lot at night, now, and that does help.
You can almost feel summer ending though it’s so hot and that’s sad too.
The thing about New York is it’s all about possibilities. My move to South Carolina coincided with the worst economic times since the depression, yadda yadda….I was supposed to save money not lose it!
I don’t regret the move. I love my new friends, my house, having a new life and being so close to the ocean.
I bought a safe today as part of my hurricane preparedness plan; the other part is buying plywood as I live in what FEMA considers a low risk area but then I have to ask myself questions about FEMA and do I trust them? Then I remember that there’s a fairly new admin and I get even more confused as I’m not sure how much of FEMA consists of career civil servants and do they really make the policies etc? I remember how Social Security, a former employer of mine, could have five regulations for one situation and non superseded any other. As a claims rep you had to use your judgment, and decide which is the best for the individual. Though you have three months of training, every office has its own training and biases on rulings.
I would assume a hurricane’s more clear cut but then I remember Katrina and others and….
I know because I live east of Route 17 I have to evacuate if the hurricane is over a certain category. I have all sorts of plans and back-up plans mostly involving train rides or riding it out at my friend Lil Red’s house in Little River.
I have never thought so much about hurricanes but the storm two weeks ago woke me up to the very distinct possibility……
It’s the sad season for me, though this year I barely feel the familiar dual sadness of what September signifies for everybody and October for me. And not feeling that sadness brings its own mixed feelings for it means I have moved on, and left both my parents beyond somewhere. For when I grieved so arduously for my mother I also had my father. Now I have neither. Carrying them in my heart is very different.
Finally I know the age you are no longer an adult orphan. It’s the age you leave all the grief for whatever reasons. In my case I think it was because it was just too damn hard to carry it with me.
No it wasn’t New York I was missing tonight. It was both the life of sadness and the happy life before it I was missing. And yes I still can write but truly believe I need cooler weather. Even with the AC on my brain has been on melt.
Very nice last paragraph. Insightful.
@Doug
Thank you my favorite and beloved Dawg. I have the first cold I’ve had in a long time and not only does it make my eyes red and me look–well luckily there are sunglasses, but it makes me sentimental.
So I wrote this post which is very old school me, and (as?) I’m finally ready to face the future
Hang in there, cooler weather is on the way. It’s way hot up here, too. And humid. Hurricanes tend to strike further south or north, because they’re coming up the gulf stream. Beaches that run east-west, like Brunswick County beaches, are more vulnerable to storms, but they do strike everywhere. Good thing to be prepared.
I feel the same way about home sometimes. Where I miss it something fierce, but then I go and realize that I miss the people that made it home, and none of them are there anymore. And what I really want, is to go back in time to when they all were.
@Sage
Thanks Sage for the hurricane info. Everybody here talks about Hugo in 89 as if it were yesterday but then says we’re overdue so….
@TC
Exactly TC. Exactly….
Doug is right as usual. Though a lonely piece it soothes me.
@cooper
Thanks Cooper about the soothing. It’s not lonely as much as coming to terms I hope
Yes, you can still write. To wit: “No it wasn’t New York I was missing tonight. It was both the life of sadness and the happy life before it I was missing.”
Well, other people may remember summers like this, but I don’t. Of course, I can’t remember what last summer was like. Rainy, I think.
We are at 29 days of 90+ in a row. And 9 of those have been over 100. Also, 55 of the past 58 days over 90. Shall I go on?
And when it does rain this time of year, it is literally like someone is pouring rain from a giant bucket.