For Summer, Pt. 3
RICKY: That was amazing.
JANE: What was amazing about it?
RICKY: When you see something like that, it’s like God is looking right at you, just for a second. And if you’re careful, you can look right back.
JANE: And what do you see?
RICKY: Beauty.
JANE: Is it only dead things?
RICKY: No. Not at all. No, it’s everywhere. You just have to be open to it.
RICKY: Sometimes there’s so much beauty in the world I feel like I can’t take it, like my heart’s going to cave in.
-this scene was taken from American Beauty
If you have access to the song, I’d like you to play the Plastic Bag Theme from American Beauty while you read this set of entries. That might sound odd, but this is my diary, and if you can’t take it, well, you’re in the wrong place. I’m still talking about beauty, and this is still for you, Summer.
The last two entries were the everyday stuff. Again, I can’t stress to you how much joy I find in the everyday stuff. These entries will be about the stuff that is a little more out of the ordinary. This is the stuff like is like crack cocaine to a person of my bearing. I’ll just kind of list them, and then go off about each for a while. It’s the best I can do, because some of them aren’t really related much.
I love the seasons. Part of what I miss about Wisconsin is the definitive seasons. Here in Colorado, winter is more like a late autumn or early spring in Wisconsin. That’s not bad, but I like the bitter cold, the crispness of it. And, of course, the leaves changing here isn’t the same as it is in Wisconsin. It honestly looks like somebody turned firecrackers loose in the trees. The wind blows through the trees, and the leaves flicker. It’s like the 4th of July for two whole weeks. It’s incredible. I understand it’s much the same in New England, so I don’t mean to say Wisconsin is the only place that has this, but seriously, if you’ve never seen the leaves change, it would be worth seeing. Here’s a picture of it, to tide you over. (This state park is about 90 minutes from my parents place.) There is truly nothing like it. To get out and walk around the forest, the whole forest is groaning at the coming snow and cold. The summer is over, and the flora gives one last parting shot to make you miss it in February when the world takes on the monochrome of white and gray. I can’t get enough of it. Simply cannot get enough. I would go through a season a week if I could, and rotate them each month. It would be awesome.
In the summer, I usually do a lot of camp counseling, and there are lots of things I love about camp, but my favorite part of camp is this enormous oak tree in the front yard of the camp. This oak tree is old. Very old. And its branches stretch over this enormous area of camp. Most of them are low hanging branches, it’s almost like a really old person.the patriarch or matriarch of the camp. In the summer, I love to go sit in the shade of that tree and let the breeze blow over my face. I love to stand in the shade and close my eyes and let the breeze blow roll past my face, almost like the wind has decided to just brush it’s lips across your entire body as you stand there, your arms outstretched to embrace it. I love in the autumn, sitting on the front porch at that camp, watching the neighboring farmer take in his crops, with the fireworks of the autumn setting a backdrop, a crisp coolness in the air. I can close my eyes and almost feel it now. I like walking around the base of the big oak late in the autumn, the crunching of the leaves under my feet and the deep, earthy aroma of the leaves rising to my nostrils. I kneel often in the leaves and take them in my hands, wondering which branch these leaves fell from. On the ground, it doesn’t matter what part of the tree you fell from…they are all equal. Which leaves came out early in the season, and which ones were the late bloomers? How much did they contribute to the tree’s survival over the last year? I love looking at the deep grooves in the tree’s trunk.the tree is aged, and the age shows in the deep crevasses of its bark.
I love the rain. I love the rain. I love thunderstorms. I like the sprinkles that threaten a big storm but never deliver. I often go to camp for solitude, and my favorite days are the days it rains. I sit on that porch and watch the storm come in. I can see the rain falling back in town, and watch it make its way toward me. I hear the drops fall on the roof, and soon, the rain finds me. When it’s warm, I like to take off my shoes and walk around in the rain, standing beneath it, accepting it, my face upturned to take it in. I love the hard rain, that beats the ground. When you stand beneath the heavy rains, it’s almost a challenge to the skies, to show that it’s hardest pelting can’t budge you. But most of all, I love thunderstorms. From my vantage point at camp, the porch looks west, and you can see the storms coming, very often. The lightning is very nearly framed, and the thunder rattles the windows. The adrenaline rushes all through me when the lightning and thunder start their dance, each following one another. The earth takes on surreal tones when the lightning comes-alternating from color to monochrome. The thunder rumbles your whole being it is so close, and your skin prickles from the electricity in the air and the adrenaline in your veins. I love the smell after it rains. That earthy smell, like the earth is opening it’s pores to accept the gift the sky has brought. The earth is strangely still after the thunderstorms, the comparative silence broken only by the drops of water falling off the roof and the neighboring trees.
(continued, next entry)