Summertime, and the living is easy

John and I went on an excellent trip to Colorado (which I plan to blog about soon, I hope) and next week I’m going to Ann Arbor. But right now I want to write about how happy I am this very moment sitting in my backyard in Tucson, listening to all the birds and watching the morning light play on the pool water.

May and June are my favorite months! The students and the snowbirds are gone, and the mosquitos haven’t arrived yet. The traffic is calm and the weather is amazing. I recorded a dozen different kinds of birds this morning. I am sitting out in my own backyard and it sounds like I’m in Costa Rica. The afternoons are hot, but in the afternoons I swim in the pool. It’s the life! I feel so lucky.

We’re doing a fair number of trips this summer, which is nice, but I think next year I want to try to take a trip or two in the winter instead, and be home more during the first half of summer. Early summer is my favorite season and I want to be here to enjoy it.

Yesterday I was reading a little bit of what I wrote in my journal last winter (this blog is not everything that I write – I also write a journal that is not published online). In my journal, starting in November and going through the first half of February, I kept mentioning depression. I think I even mentioned it in this blog. I tend to get a little depressed in the winter because I don’t get out enough.

Next winter I want to make a point to get out and do some low elevation desert camping and hiking even though it might be cold and cloudy and windy and even wet (we had an unusually wet winter this past year). And I would like to take a trip to Mexico in January or February – and not just across the border, but further south, where it’s warmer. And I want to make a point to visit friends and family even though winter travel is difficult and my friends and family all live where it rains and snows in the winter. I’ll go anyway.

Meanwhile, it’s just glorious here in Tucson in June; the hottest and driest month of the year. I’m really glad I’ve lived here long enough that I’ve met other people here who love the summer in the desert just as much as I do. At first it seemed like everybody thought I was crazy to love the Tucson summers! But now I’ve found a variety of friends and acquaintances who also love the summer in Tucson the best. It’s the best season anywhere! We not only love the Tucson summer heat better than the frigid winters of the north – we love the Tucson summers better than the cool and pleasant winters here! And now I can happily say that without getting gasps of horror and alarm from everyone. Because now I have some friends here who will nod with understanding and agreement. Thank you!

Of course, I am privileged to have a home with air conditioning and a swimming pool. I would not want to be homeless here in the summer. But I would not want to be homeless in the winter where most of my old friends and family live either. Homelessness is a different topic; a hard, difficult, tragic topic.

The fact that we are facing climate change also makes it harder for me to blithely revel in the heat and dryness of the Tucson desert. To celebrate the heat can feel like I’m uncaring about the ills of the world and the lives that will be lost due to excessive heat. But then I need to remember to let that all go and indulge in the sense of gratitude of being amazed and delighted that I recorded 12 different kinds of birds with my Merlin Bird ID app this morning. I feel like I’m living in a vacation in the tropics.

Update: I wrote this yesterday morning and forgot to publish it. Then today we had high winds in the late morning, blowing dirt everywhere, followed by a thunderstorm and downpour, with temperatures in the 100’s the whole time. I will never cease to be astounded by rain in that kind of heat. Rain that is not cold? Hot rain! It just does not compute! If I had a band, I’d call it “Hot Rain”.

Anyway, the storm has blown over now, and it’s beautiful again. Everything is clean and smells like the desert. It’s still 105º. I’m going to get in the pool.

To send me a comment, email turning51bykristina@gmail.com.

Life Coaching for Neurodiverse Professionals