What I Will Miss

       Summer vacation is closing its door for me this week.  It was only about eight weeks ago when the door opened wide and I thankfully danced through it.  Everything changes and so, yes, I will shut summer's door and be curious about what the new school year will bring.  The softly closing door will, however, remind me of all the things I will miss.

      I will miss waking up to my own rhythm.  I always wake up early but during the treadmill days getting out of bed can be painful.  I don't get enough sleep and it is demanding to step out of the warm cocoon and onto the cold treadmill.  During summer vacation days, I wake up early but slip out of bed with ease, always ready to find out what the new day wants from me.

     I will greatly miss the sounds of summer silence.  I will miss the days when I can leisurely write during the mid morning and not hear anything but the voices in my head.  I will miss the afternoon breezes when I paint in silence.


   






       I will miss the extra sleep.  Very concrete this one.  When the treadmill is running, weekday naps can only happen after work and cat naps at 5:00 pm are so much less satisfying than crawling under the covers for an hour or longer snooze on a foggy late morning.  I need to be out of bed consistently by 4:30 on treadmill days and so I am generally falling an hour or two short of my personal requirement of eight and and a half hours of sleep daily.   Less daily sleep makes for a challenging day.

      I will miss reading.  Summer days bring novels and non fiction.  They bring the chance to do internet research on so many topics.  They bring the pleasure of a relaxing walk through  periodicals like The Sun and Atlantic Monthly.  I get the periodicals during the treadmill days, true, but they often pile up on the dining room table, patiently waiting for my attention.  In summer, they get read immediately.

    I will miss tomatoes, basil, strawberries, berries, corn and more from the garden.  I will miss the chance to play a bit more with food because I have the time to experiment more and the tasty produce with which to experiment.

      I will miss the beach.  Treadmill days make it tough to get over there on any kind of regular basis.  Even summer days are such that beach adventures are still strangers to me but, if you count vacation days in Ft Bragg or Monterey, as well as the easy 25 minute drive over to the Sonoma County beaches, then you will see that beach days are more a part of summer days than treadmill days.

     I will miss the time to leisurely exercise.  Don't get me wrong.  I will exercise daily on treadmill days because I like to do that.  I am a weirdo who enjoys starting her days with an hour of solitary physical exercise of one kind or another.  But summer days afford a few extra minutes every day to extend the walk, take a morning bike ride, do additional stretching, or lift a few weights just for fun.  I will do the basics but won't get to enjoy the extra moments of deep breathing and feeling my body thrive.

   Now, lest you get the impression that there is nothing good about treadmill days, I leave you with a hint about another day's post.  Treadmill days bring pleasures of their own.  I'll let you know about those later.