Laying low in Jamestown

It's the time of year when summer is wearing thin, when the daily heat and dry conditions are no longer interesting. Admittedly, the highs are dropping from 100 plus to the high 90's. Doesn't feel a lot different. The soils are as hard as concrete, the vegetation is crispy dry, except for the poison oak, 20 feet high everywhere I need to dig a pit. Tiresome. Work is tiresome and I am a lot more than "some" tired. The skies are blue. Always blue, with a slight brown tinge that reminds me how close I live to the Central Valley. On weekends I am doing small things. I have been knitting a lot more again, since it's too hot to do anything outside. Having fun playing with my yarn stash, packaging it all up into color bands for working up a fun project called the "shawl of many colors". Organizing all my needles into sizes, amazing how many I have.

Walking around outside for a bit in the mornings, checking the plants, removing crispy leaves from the hostas that are as tired of the hot summer as I am. I talked to the hostas this morning, whispered secrets to them. "Soon, soon, I promise. Next spring while you are sleeping I will pack your big urns into my truck and take you home, and when you wake up you will see a cool forest, big trees, shade. I promise". I think they heard me.

I was also thinking about my home in Klamath this morning. The whole story of my life in Klamath and that little house on Painter Street was so magical, moving to Klamath and buying and living in that home was my first real experience of "flow". I have been saddened to see all this magic reduced to mediocrity by the crashing market, having to sell the house when things were down, all to eliminate possible capital gains taxes and to quit dealing with renters coming and going.

I stood in my living room last month, after making my floors all shiny and pretty again, and wondered about all of it. The light coming in those windows is wonderful. There is something wonderful about that little home, and I knew that there was a family somewhere, or someone somewhere who would walk in that door and feel the warmth and delight and safety that I felt there the first time I opened it. But lately, what has felt like a huge burden is shifting into a feeling of hope, not yet real, but at least hope.