Editorial 5.7, August 2003, by Deirdre Helfferich The Soggy, Soggy, Do July The summer rains have come, a month early, as I feared they would. As I write this, rain is pelting down from a gray and chilly sky, leaking into my greenhouse and dripping savagely on my newly hatched sunflower sprouts and my overgrown, root-bound catnip plants. My tomatoes seem to be in a dryish place. The cats are bored. My husband’s off in Ruby, where it’s sunny, helping a friend build his cabin. My friend is due any minute, to spend the night on my couch and so avoid a night in her truck. The cats will cease being bored as soon as she and her exceedingly active husky cross arrive, but that doesn’t help right now. The legislature has finally adjourned, the governor is annoying everyone with his budgeting, and politics in Alaska are making way for a force stronger and mightier than even mosquitoes: the Summer Project List. Summer, being brief, and apparently soggy this year, is packed to the gills with Projects, with a capital ‘P’. These are items that Must Be Done This Year (primarily because they weren’t done last year, nor the year before that) or else winter will be very sorry indeed. And perhaps without running water. Ick. Sunshine helps get all these projects done, but it also helps one foster the illusion that There Is Plenty of Time. Thus, all those things I could have done in comfort while there was still sunlight and warmth and pleasant breezes, now must be done in the mud and chill and rain, which means I am far less likely to go out and do them, because they suddenly seem like chores. The list includes things like Clean the Yard, Put Up the Sheetrock, Repair the Greenhouse Roof, Paint the House, Clean the Fishtanks, Plant the Potatoes (not done yet even though it’s way past time to put the spuds in the dirt), and other once-offs, along with the never-ending chores: Edit the Articles, Change the Catbox, Do the Dishes. Since it’s raining, I’ll probably do the indoors items first. However, it is times like these, when I am faced with the prospect of attacking my list, that I am at my most productive. I read books. I write articles. I check my e-mail. I take naps. I actually write letters! I get everything done that isn’t on my list. August Except, perhaps, finish my editorial on time. Now it is more than a month later than when I first started this piece, and some of the summer projects are actually done. I did plant the potatoes, some of them, and my sunflower sprouts are now waist-high—a few even have blooms. My husband put up the sheetrock. The weather alternates between gray and yuckky and marvelous and deceptively sunny. There is a definite chill in the morning air. The cats are still bored. I think that may be an occupational hazard for felines. The never-ending chores still need doing, except that now the laundry situation is getting serious, and I will have to face the prospect of the laundromat very, very soon or else I won’t be able to appear in public except in an evening gown. I did have a little respite from the rain and chores a few weeks ago, when I went to Washington, D.C. for a three-day national Green Party conference. It was soggy there, too, but hot, sunny, and breezy. It felt like Hawaii. And of course, while there I picked up a whole new pile of chores, political ones, Things To Do inspired by the enthusiastic and well-organized bunch of people I met there. When I was younger, the summer was always so busy that I looked forward to winter for the relief it would give me: I could rest. But in the winter, there were other things to do, school-related things. So by the end of the winter, I looked forward to summer so I could rest. Now I know that there is always a Project List, always things to do around the house, always things I should do with friends, always things to learn. There are always good causes to serve, broken tools that need fixing, unfinished business to attend, places to see, concerts to hear, tales to share. Summer, fall, winter, and spring: there is always something that has to be finished, always something yet to begin. And if it isn’t raining, it will be snowing, or sunny, or windy. Or the political climate will be hostile, or the religious one, or perhaps it will be my financial situation that will be difficult. The things that need to be done, whether I see them as chores or as fun, are the tasks that keep my life interesting. I will never have conditions that are perfectly ideal—or almost never. That’s the nature of life. My cats, on the other hand, are frequently bored—but they don’t have the advantage of a list of Things That Must Be Done. | ||
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