The Dog Days of Summer

Image from vermontfarmheart.wordpress.com

The days slip by in a haze of routine. I bustle around the kitchen moving items on the counter and trying to get ahead of the ants that have invaded once again by the window, thinking of my little one's words, "Mom, the world has no shortage of arthropods. They are crafty, hearty buggers." This makes me feel less evil for smashing as many as I can with a wet paper towel, although surely Karma is still keeping score of my mass ant murder. In the quiet of the massacre, I go back, back to summer days not long ago filled with happy chatter of little girls making up games to play and cajoling me to take them to the pool. Their normal childhood is my greatest achievement, as well as fodder for my fondest memories, which now come leaking out of my eyes, burning hot wet streams down my face.

There was a time when I knew my purpose, knew it well and relished the challenges of fulfilling it. Now that those days have passed, the days like today leave me breathless with the sheer "silence" that parts of my life have become. And yet, my phone spits out the noises and sounds throughout the day of touches from those I love. The leaves drip, drip fat drops of rain leftover from the passing storm we  had earlier, and if you listen carefully, you can still hear soft rumbles in the distance. This evening, as the sun sinks low and the air hangs thick over damp grass, the cicadas, crickets and tree frogs will sing a medley to welcome the starry night. It is then, before I shut down from another dog day of summer, that I will remember new purposes, not all of which have been revealed. New dreams being formed bit by bit, march before me like those ants on the window sill towards a future full of possibilities (...which hopefully will end better for me than it has for them).