Writing and other impossible tasks.

I remember living in Minnesota and thinking I would never get through each winter. I sewed Halloween costumes two sizes too big to accommodate the snowsuits required underneath. The first snow fall found me with my camera capturing the one of a kind flakes falling gently in our yard. Thanksgiving was as crisp as the apple pie I
baked each year. Christmas found us sledding down the gentle slope of our backyard toward the farm below our property. Then came January, followed by February, followed by March. The snow piled up in ugly blackened piles. I grew weary of wearing flannel pajamas with knee high socks to bed each night. The children grew more and more cranky as winter wore on and my patience grew shorter by the day. Cabin fever set in and the walls shrunk creating a bleak dark mood inside me. By April when we often searched for Easter eggs in winter coats and mittens I had proverbially “had it”. End of my rope. Depressed. Swearing to move to a warm climate before the next winter began.

Today I called a friend and said, I’ve had it. End of my rope. Depressed. I swear I will not be here again next summer. .

Yes, I did make the move to sunny Arizona after one of those long and arduous winters. I traded one extreme for another. And while I swore to never complain once I left the mid-west, I am. But honestly? A heat wave that will not break. I’m tired of the weather forecasters predicting a cool front that never arrives. Today as I climbed into my car and burnt the back of my legs on my black leather seat, I screamed. The water bottle I had left in the car was melted into soft plastic. The blacktop shimmered with a mirage of water. My tinted moisturizer dripped from my chin and the hair I had washed this morning stuck to my scalp in wet ringlets. But I had been cooped up in the house for days, every errand put aside for the next day until my list grew too long to ignore one more time. I gave in and drove to the strip mall; I met a friend for iced tea; I went in and out of stores feeling the morning heat up as I checked off my “to do” list. I began to perspire and pant and in a final rage, swore that I would be out of this blasted heat before the next summer begins.

Of course Halloween will come again this year, and the following day the temperature will drop by thirty degrees and we will all remember why we moved here. But until then I reserve my right to complain.

Oh, and writing is impossible because a fried brain leaves little room for creativity. Au revoire!