In Summer's Decline
All of Europe is taking August off and so am I
It’s time for my August vacation, American style.
And by this I mean instead of drumming up a to-do list for the slower days so I can be productive (this month’s banished word) instead I’ve let my mind wander and amble out to the hammock each afternoon under the ash and aspen trees with Hot Dog the cat at my heels, ready to let my mind lead me astray for as long as it needs.
I’m reminded by real estate social media that whatever business I have now will dictate what money I make in two months. But what about banking memories and spontaneous creative projects for when the sunflowers are shriveled and the Goldfinches are jumping from head to head searching for the last seeds before heading south alongside the Country Cub ladies who cluck about not being able to bear the snow anymore in this place with endless winters?
Joy and daydreaming hold space equally with money-making in this house.
My son texted me this video of him kayak fishing out on a lake somewhere this morning before 8AM. Seeing this makes me way happier than him telling me he made lots of money today. The August plan seems to be working.
August in Montana…beautiful and warm but bittersweet because once July is over the mornings are just a little cooler, the days a bit shorter and we know WE KNOW that this is really the last month we will enjoy this technicolor landscape before it’s taken away by old man winter. There’s an urgency to it all, a rush to drink in as much as possible.
The onset of spring and then summer very quickly thereafter is measured by what the plants in the yard are doing: that row of caragana is the first to leaf out in spring, followed by the blooms of the Princess Kay Plums and then crabapples take over the heavy lifting. Our largest Green Ash in the corner of the yard which was bolted and cabled together this spring after the trunk started to split has survived just fine and I’m so glad, because it’s the last tree to acknowledge fall and drop it’s leaves each year, signaling that it’s time to untie the hammock from the trees back behind the chicken coop and roll it up for winter.
I’m certain winter is coming early this year because the seed pods on the caragana hedge have started twisting and spreading seeds at least three weeks earlier than usual, and when I head out to put clothes on the line I hear the tinny pop of them landing on the roof of the pole barn below, and like it or not I know what that means.
Despite of all this I am still not completely offline because we aren’t retired and bills don’t take a vacay, but August always looks different than the rest of the year. The reward of so much time of hard work building marketing and project management systems for my business for so long pays off handsomely, meaning shit still gets done without my butt in the chair all day. What are you doing to bank happiness and memories?
Meet me in the hammock. Until next time,
Learn wildly, Connect madly.
More on letting yourself live a little:
More Than This
“We're living in what I call the "performance economy", where showing the work has become more valuable than doing the actual work.”--Justin Welch