In the three months since I last wrote, I have survived my first Texas summer. It makes you want to constantly dry heave, and shower in arctic water, and subsist solely on coconut juice and popsicles. This summer was a bear trying to eat us all at the campground. It was a garbage truck that followed you day and night. It was a desert solitude that forced you indoors, reading books and napping through the daylight hours as if you were snuggled up for a winter on a remote island off the coast of Maine. Only when you walked outside, you felt as if you were a muffin in an oven.
It was over 100 degrees for 9 weeks straight. Every day. Relentless. Branches have fallen off trees, brittle and dead. The dirt in my front yard has cracked. Tomatoes refused to fruit due to temperature that would not fall at night. Deer have tried to break into people's garages to find water. (This is true, I heard a woman in the airport talking about it.) Creek beds are barren. I rode my bike to work in 108 degree weather and though I might ralph. But in a weird way, I sort of enjoyed myself. I ate avocados. Swam in pools, floated down rivers. Jumped into Barton Springs once darkness fell. Woke early to walk the dog. Relished my naps, my literary pursuits, my air conditioned work place.
Then, the state caught fire.
In Seattle, an article reported that Western Washington had experienced 80 minutes of weather over 80 degrees THE ENTIRE YEAR, prior to the much prayed-for August heat wave.
Rick Perry says global warming isn't real. My Dad says that God has abandoned Rick Perry. I usually listen to my father. He knows all the correct rules to Bocce Ball, and croquet. He drinks his vodka on the rocks, in small mason jars, and plays guitar with his eyes closed and his heart open.
And I have survived the summer.
In ceasing to write, I attempted to spare you the internal monologue that has marked the past few months. The anxiousness of having a new dog, of imminent change and all too familiar loss. You know the old adage of the elephant in the room? Well, I feel as if all my elephants have converged upon my ranch style rental house, and taken up shop in my bedroom. I come home and they are all eating quesadillas, sitting on my bed. My elephants have been amassing a list of my deepest, most tragically held core beliefs, and turned them into a mountain they insist that I climb before I get older and it becomes too late.
This is all just a fancy, metaphorical way of saying that I got my heart broken. Despite my amateur map making skills, the path to love is unclear, and fraught with sadness. As I was having a good cry on the floor of Target, talking to my sister, I asked her what the point of all this is- why do we even try? And she replied, simply, "because our lives would be boring as shit if we never took any chances." Thank you, Shelley Newman.
In better news, Guthrie the dog is doing splendidly. The puppy who was once 4 months old is now 8 months old, 55 pounds and a big ball of love. I finally stopped calling my mom in a panic over having a large dog, once she exclaimed, "This is really neurotic! somehow you seem to think that the bigger he gets, the more responsibility it is. It doesn't matter if he's big!" As always, she was correct.
When people ask me what I am doing in Austin, sometimes I don't know how to reply.
In a more linear sense, I am working at a charming downtown grocery chain called Royal Blue, where I listen to Pandora radio, wear whatever I want, and sell sandwiches, beer, expensive wine and Kraft macaroni and cheese. I chat it up with waiters and travelers, homeless drunks and lovable co-workers, and try to avoid "the sleeping bag monster." (For real, she can be frightening.)
In the more personal sense, I am spending lots of time trying to scale that mountain in an attempt to make more sense of my past and my inner terrain.
As I deal with the mountains and the elephants, I allow myself to be charmed by Texans and content with my days. I ride my piece of shit bike, and write letters to old friends. As I type this I have a glass of whiskey on my bedside and a hound dog asleep at my feet, so I must be on the right track.
And I remember, despite the heat generated by both the apocalyptic weather and the imminent change within my own small life, the world at large goes on. Kyle proposed on the edge of the Grand Canyon. They called me from Vegas to tell me of the engagement and I ran screaming around the house. A little girl named Calliope was brought into the world by my dear friend and his lovely girlfriend. I sent her a big pink sock monkey and hung her picture on my wall.
It all moves on. I survived the summer, and I know that someday, hopefully soon, there will be rain.
