In No Real Hurry...

In this heat, I feel I should be dressed in white seersucker with a Mint Julep sweating on a table before me. All the while peering from under the brim of my hat, through the shimmering heat at the lower back 40, knowing it'll be a fat harvest. The kind of heat that stops even the bugs from persevering.

“Marsh Ron, it sho' be fixin' to heat up like the Devil's own!”

“Why raght you are Scipio...raght you are.”

Idle contentment. This first heat wave has forced it on me. I've always considered the Southern mindset to be dictated, in large part, by their weather. You just can't hurry as you must yield to the taxation that heat can impose at will. This observation, is coming from a Yankee who was never further south than New York City. But I can surmise some things, can't I? 

Summer is for lounging if you can pull it off. Torpidity becomes a sought after virtue and a moral one too.

My plantation is about 40 feet by 50 feet, full with crabgrass, Kentucky bluegrass and a huge assortment of sugar maple saplings I've yet to pare down. I have one cushioned wrought iron chair to relax in. By my feet would be my only servant, a panting German Shepherd dog and he is wholly incompetent as a menial and will not listen to me if the mood suits him.

But it's my estate, tiny at it is.

Yesterday, as there was no real way to escape this heat, I decided to sit under my maple and read a book. If I sit still, not think of this heat, it will cease to have much effect upon me. I have copious books to choose from and the problem is that I've read them all three to four times already. But I do that, you know, re-read them.

I found my old copy of Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion. It's a great read of late 60's and early 70's California. Apt enough, the first chapter goes on to describe the hot Santa Ana winds and of a local murder. She describes well the hard bitten desert life these people live. She ties in the murder, the divorces, alcoholism and general ugliness of the people to the inhospitable climate. I then wondered if all the shootings in Providence are a prelude to a long, hot summer, with more gunfire to come. Well, not on Tara, not on my homestead I say to myself. I hope. Though they can still burn Atlanta you know.

Occasionally, I close my eyes, rest the book on my lap. There is little sound save for the wind in the trees, and perhaps the occasional sound of a jet curving over Seekonk to make it's approach to TF Green. That hot noon stillness was barely interrupted by a car I heard pass by, and that muted as well.

In time enough, I found myself stretching further and further out in the chair, taking longer breaks from the book. I finally nodded off during one. An hour, perhaps two floated by without my knowing really. I came awake, with the dog chewing on two by four that's meant for that purpose. He just looked up, noticed I was awake and went back to his job. I swear I felt as if I was asleep for just 20 minutes. No. I was out for a good two hour when I finally went into the house and saw the time.

That...was an excellent use of my time yesterday.