I made this photograph yesterday morning. Early. Around 6AM. Just after I kissed Robbie goodbye, told him to be careful, told him to take care of his bros, and sent him away to jump fire in California. It was a resplendent morning. Today feels the same. The cabin sits on the edge of a small clearing. Above the clearing the sky opens up. Today, the sky is lightly washed with cloud wisp, like a veil waiting to be burned away, and there is a hawk, crying and circling. It is very still. The light pours through green on green until the underbrush is lit up and rejuvenated, brought back from the stroke of night with the width and breadth of branches reaching. I can’t remember that it will be hot today. I am made forgetful by the cool of the morning.
I say aloud to myself, quite often, at random, “It is summer.” Because summer is fleeting and I want to use it all up, down to the dimes, nickels and pennies. I want to spend my days like a woman obsessed with living.
It is summer. While at the lake with a friend, a few days ago, I was bitten directly on the rump by horseflies, five times. My friend said she could see the welts through my skivvies. I’m convinced I have the itchiest bottom in the entire state of Washington. I hope someone soon relieves me of this honorary title. I was with two other friends the other night and I asked them, “Microcosmically speaking, what do you think it sounds like when a horsefly takes a bite of skin from a body. Skin is tough. There must be a wild ripping sound that is somewhat delightful to them, like when we sink our teeth into corn on the cob and tear the sweet kernels away.” It was obvious to me that they had never wondered about such a thing. Then I felt a litle awkward but mostly gloriously weird.
Do you ever wonder about the tiny things? I hope you do. But not everyone does. It’s not a place of curiosity a person can force the mind to travel to.
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In the open places, on the hillsides, the world trips its way, dizzy with heat, into the browns and yellows of late summer. The bird songs have changed, the bug melodies too. I don’t hear the frogs as often. I saw a cicada for the very first time in my life, at least, I believe it was a cicada. It had the cutest face I’ve ever seen on a bug, a pekinese face, with colorless stained glass windows for wings.
Sometimes it’s so hot I think I am losing my mind. I am tired at night. My words come out cross threaded and backwards when I try to speak aloud.
I have been running. A lot. Despite the heat. Or perhaps because of the heat. It’s almost unbearable at times, being out under the sun and moving fast. When I pass through tall grass in sunny spaces, the grasshoppers cast themselves into reckless leaps. I hear them all the time now, ratcheting their raspy tunes as they chew their tobacco cud. There is an alfalfa field, ripe and fragrant, alive with a bevy of fluttering bugs, watered by sprinklers. It smells fresh and farmy as I pass by. The humidity of hay growing comes at me like a wall of water and I slog for a moment as my sweat suddenly appears and flows down my face, arms and back like spring creeks. My skin doesn’t give way like the land does. I don’t thin away under my own rolling waters.
There is a pond. It is really a dugout. But for the sake of the poetic, I’ll call it a pond here. I have the dogs stop for a swim in it while we run because they begin to trip on their long red tongues and their sides heave so deeply that their ribs are xylophones. In the trees there, I occasionally see an owl (disturbed from its day perch) fly low and swooping; the whomp of its wing beats whirls the tall grasses and clatters the aspen. The woodpecker nest is empty. The skies are a teenaged riot of birds.
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I feel myself reaching for something: obsessively, honestly, patiently. I’m not in a rush. Not for anything. Even though it is summer, and summer is passing by.
I find it absolutely, deliciously hilarious that I wondered aloud that exact thing about horse flies yesterday…at the calibration lab. They all looked at me funny, but I’ve grown accustomed to that. This made me laugh out loud.
Today is a glorious-HEAVENLY!!-60-some-odd degrees outside. I am trying to store the cool in all the quiet spots of my person, that I may conjure them forth when August hits.
You can keep your summer hot, I love sweater weather.
xx
Lovely words… I was there with you, and felt it all. Thank you for that escape! Your description of your forest brings me back to my childhood. I grew up in a pine grove, and literally lived in it from dawn to dusk in the summer. I packed a lunch in the early morning hours, and never went back til my dad blew his shofar (no joke! it set every dog in the area howling!)at dinner time. Pine sap was my daily adornment.
Right before we were moving away, when I was 18, that grove was torn down and a large fancy development put in. I cried so much over that! I remember asking God to recreate that piece of land for me in heaven – it was my only solace!
Enjoy your hot foresty day, J!
Oh Jillian, I love your stories about your days. I don’t think the horse fly question was odd at all— we need to know these things!! Your description of your welts made me cringe because I am a magnet for all bugs that will nibble on a person, or perhaps I just swell up more than the average gal.
I felt as though I was there with you, running with the hot dogs (not Penelope! hee) since your description was so poetic. Thank you for writing about your summer sojourn– if you could call it that.
you’re so weird. but that’s a glorious thing, in my book, anyway. because i’m rather weird, myself.
love your phrase “the light pours through green on green.” this hot dry alaska summer is just that way: green on green. i think of that often. so green.
i’m smoking up three different salmon today and thought of you. silver salmon from rabbit slough….reds from the kasilof and the copper.
bless robbie….may he and his smokejumping brothers be safe.
xx
“The humidity of hay…”, beautiful. The ability you have to convey your experiences so vividly takes my breath away sometimes. I don’t know you, but I often feel like I’ve shared bits of your day with you. Tomorrow morning on my run past hay fields, I’ll remember your words.
I can almost taste that salty sweat of summer you’re running through from here! Lovely descriptions/words woven here – even if you feel a muddled mess – it doesn’t show. ;o) Love your new header smiley pants!! (I wondered when you would lose the winter vest/thermos.. lol).
Did you announce your winning photo caption? So curious to see what you guys came up with!
xx
mel
needle and nest
So glad to have your stories unfold again and have missed your tales about mountain life. Your truly a favourite writer to read and it’s so good to sit and have someones words make you laugh whole heartily, thanks.
I love the glorious weirdness of you. and of others. I have some very weird and lovely friends and my daughter is one of them. we notice the tiny things. once when she was young she wondered (aloud to me) what she would taste like “breaded” I had been making homemade chicken tenders with our young cockerels. And she wanted them every night. One night she just busted out with the “breaded Kiva” thing. I can appreciate that she made the connection between two fleshy beings, not much different from one another being killed, cooked and eaten. Hey, everyone else thought she was weird (with raised eyebrows and a sideways glance) but I just thought she was Gloriously and Brilliantly Weird (with a huge warm Mama-Love heart.)
And I am going to keep reminding you that we are ALL waiting for the book. I’ll be the first to order a copy for every single person I love. (LOTS)
xoxo Kerry
my grandfather always told a joke about a guy who was called “nuts” by another guy. he told him, “well, if you’re normal, then i’m glad i’m nuts!” i feel that way about “weird”. sometimes ‘normal’ people scare me.
beautiful photo & glorious, poetic words
I understand the need to remind yourself, “it is summer.” Sometimes seasons go by so fast I feel like I have to say this too or think it in my mind. Horseflies are just meanies and I want to know the answer to your question too. I’m pretty weird too though. 🙂 You make me want to run again- so far, I’ve just gotten back to walking with a friend all over town. Soon, though, soon. Luscious words describing a place I long to see for myself one day. Thinking of R as he jumps and jumps this summer- and you missing him. xoxo
Starting from my ankles on up to my neck, I’ve counted 19 deer fly bites. That’s the price you pay for playing in the river on a hot summer day! I really have not imagined the sound of a bite taken out of me by a horse or deer fly. I do know the sound of a whack! As I swat them, feasting on my legs. I really don’t mean to. It’s natural reflex.
You always describe the sweet smell of summer, and oh how I wish I was a runner. Flying through the pondi’s alongside wide winged owls.
Beautiful Sunday to you!
x
you, my friend, are a descriptive master…words which connect us to nature, to life. always medicine for the soul!
XOXO
Gloriously weird. GLORIOUSLY WEIRD!!! I love it. I love being weird. You are a joyful soul, full of every emotion under the sun. I wish Robbie the best in his journeys, and that he always return home safely to you. I pray for him all the time. It is cool this morning…Dave and I went for a run this morning through the local park. There was a family biking festival type thing, and all these food trucks. I swear, running laps around food trucks is torture! It is still beautifully grey and cloudy out–relief after a 90 degree week. Today will see me fetching a few things up at school, working in the home studio, yanking things around in the garden, and then venturing off to dog-sit for a few days.
I like everyone else here love to indulge in your beautiful words and thoughts. I am weird myself, in fact i giggle to myself often and when people ask me why i am giggling I will not tell them, i just tell them they would not understand that it is only amusing to me. I wonder what animals and insects are thinking, what conversations they are having. My husband happens on me often doing this, and laughs. A wasp appeared in my bathroom, and he and i had wonderful conversations for almost 2 weeks. Even fed him sugar water. love doing that, it reminds of being a child.
I admire anyone that can run in the heat of Summer – I am a walker and even then I wilt in this heat. Perhaps it is old age. I watch other runners, (with their sweat patches) and am in awe of their strength and LOVE of running. Your early morning photograph is wonderful! Really, just wonderful.
xx
AHA! I found a word today that describes you and this photograph perfectly…though you have probably already heard of it…”Nemophilist” (a haunter of the woods, one who loves the forest and it’s beauty and solitude.) origin: Greek
Oh, I’m soaking in the gloriousness that is summer elsewhere in the world (London is all grey and dreary today, all cold drops and splashes and wet bricks), even if it comes with the itchy behinds ! Also, high five to weirdness and wondering, I love the interesting little places our imagination can take us 🙂
Reminds me of the book you recommended last week Jillian – the Forest Lover – read it in two days and couldn’t put it down. Magical stuff – I think you and Emily Carr would’ve been great pals!
I think about small things all the time! My boyfriend introduced me to this website last week and it STILL blows my mind: http://scaleoftheuniverse.com It’s awesome to zoom out, but zooming in is even more interesting to me.
Sorry! It’s http://scaleofuniverse.com
I was running in the heat of the day for a while. It’s not a smart thing to do, granted, but I did hydrate myself like crazy first, and only really ran for a half an hour, maybe a little longer. I would have people ask how I could stand to do it, and just shrug a little, because… well…
Something about all that sweat flying off me felt clean. When I finished, and I washed, and I came back out of the shower, I felt like I had sweated out all the things that I couldn’t stand that day, let them go, let them wet the dirt with my worry and walked away with just a couple less scars for the day.