Middle Of Summer Damn IT

A Summer Girl is what I am, through and through. Always was. The sure sign was a deep harrowing melancholy that hit me the minute my mom said… “school clothes shopping”. Keep in mind I am so old that school clothes shopping meant, dresses and skirts in wool and hush puppy shoes in suede. Also old enough to know a woman who, as a child, wore underpants that she made out of old flour sacks. True.

So, when its the end of August and folks say, “Ah, the last days of summer”, I feel somewhat annoyed. Like, hey, summer is not over until September is almost over, and September hasn’t even started. Not only that, but, some of the best days of summer are not even summer, they are Indian Summer days. It was on one of these Indian Summer days that I had my talk with God. I was fourteen and life was split wide open in the most innocent and empowering of ways. More on that later.

Back to today. Today is the day after the end of the 50th Anniversary of the Philadelphia Folk Festival. I was there for two days of it. Image #1 at the top tells you what much of the weekend was like, image #3 tells you what the Yards tent looks like when they run out of beer, waaa.

Between the two is an image that speaks to a message I received this morning. Before I was awake, but after I wasn’t sleeping anymore, I was having a conversation about the earth (seeds), the sky (feathers) and the water (shells)… the fire was eluding me. The fire wasn’t clear, the fire was a mystery. And that’s when my conversation turned more into a loud whisper in my ear. Hey! Don’t push it sister, just accept the mystery and go with that. And that’s when I realized I am pregnant. Now we know that pregnant can mean:

developing offspring within the body



but it can also mean:

  • weighty or significant; full of meaning: a conversation occasionally punctuated by pregnant pauses.
  • of great or potentially great import, implication, or moment: “It was a politically pregnant time in Poland”
  • having a profusion of ideas; creative or inventive.
  • producing results; fruitful: a pregnant decision.

And that is the pregnant that I am. And that is the situation I will accept. And with that I opened my eyes and sprung from my bed and started my day. Getting ready for those labor pains, making a nest and really in love.

Like the beech nut, I will open and something full of potential will be revealed and maybe it will grow, maybe it will not, but that isn’t what my life is about. My life is about being a Summer Girl, and it is the middle of summer damn it! Let’s enjoy.

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