Running Down the Dog Days

After weeks of telling my friends and family that I’m taking the summer off from the Kate Chronicles, I think I might just do it.

Hit the road. Throw the luggage on the carousel. No one will notice and I’ll be back in September, rested, tanned beyond the sunscreen, run through the mill and ready to get back on the horse. Goodness, that’s cliche. Maybe I’ll even finish that novel. You see? I could use the break.

My current personal challenge is to inhabit the moment, enjoy what I’m doing, mindfully pay attention to the here and right fucking now. I’m learning to turn away from the epic grievances against myself for the list of things I should be doing, and lean into the wonder of the right in front of me. And there are moments of amazement everywhere!

I have hiked through corn fields and reservoirs, vaguely smiling at dogs playing, watching blooms dance on the breeze inside the summer doldrums, but not noticing because I should have unloaded the dishwasher before I left. Or, preferring to think of ways to describe the scenery instead of just feeling the sweet, clean air and listening to the wind make music through swaying branches—See, there I go again. And while I tell myself that a novel never gets finished while walking the dogs, I know that’s not true. Plenty of people walk their way into a plot.

The best part of aging is the surrender. I didn’t live up to anyone’s expectations—most especially my own. I know they are all meaningless. What happens, is.

I could not write Harry Potter and combine it with an Einstein like flair for discovery. At least I haven’t, yet.

The march of time is unconcerned with my preparations and heartlessly flies by or lags. The physical ravages of aging both bother me and fill me with pride for having been left standing. I am still here, and not everyone gets another day.

When I got pregnant I couldn’t imagine myself giving birth. An entire baby from a tiny gateway. I thought perhaps I could request to be not just in a twilight rest, but knocked out the way my mother had been for me.

“Oh,” she told me. “It’s no big deal. Barely hurt. I don’t know what they’re going on about. I loved being pregnant! I gained seven pounds and lost it a few weeks later.”

I gained 35 pounds I didn’t drop, and doubled that when the next kid showed up. My mother had an amazing sense of herself and resilience I didn’t inherit. She fiddled while Rome (or at least, Ocean Parkway) burned.

I do not want to spend whatever time I have left as part of this particular slipstream bemoaning what I’ve lost. My eyelids are “crepeing” and the laugh lines encroaching into my corners, no matter how sanguine I’ve become. There is no time to waste.

We don’t get to chose our start time, or the date of expiration, but we do aim our focus in between.

All of which was a long winded way to say that if the story doesn’t drop next week don’t be alarmed, it just means that I’m off frolicking, loving on my people, playing with babies, making new friends—enjoying all the things I’ve fought to earn. I’ll be back in September. Or two weeks. The point is, this moment around the sun is the only one that counts, and I aim to devour it.