HOW TO SPEND YOUR HOT JULY by Nina Naomi

 

Backyard Pool 

How to spend your hot July --

Wake up when the air is cool and birdsong bright.

Unwind the hose and soak your plants,  

The yielding moss, 

The petals poised and shy,

All just rising as are you. 

Or if it rained breathe deep,

Your face aslant to feel the mist, 

Bare feet in water pooling after stormy nights.

Embrace your work in casual clothes of linen, cotton, colors pale.

And salads, lovely ones for lunch, 

Flaked salmon, greens and hard-boiled egg.

Stay in the cool.

But if you're home and days are free,

Then do as you will and answer to none. 

Lie on a raft in shade or sun,

Float or doze, read or dream.

Blanket the grass with your mother's quilt.

Iced tea, perhaps a nap, a book, your art your craft with paper paint your thoughts and words.

Or meet with friends in sleeveless blouses sandaled feet and order something good to eat. 

A cake, a drink with lemon tart,

This month is one to give your heart.  

miniature garden

JULY IS SUCH A LOVELY MONTH

Rose o' Sharon blooms in July

July is such a lovely month.  Plenty of summer left.  Quite hot where we live and dry, but good for swimming and grilling and eating al fresco,  especially this holiday weekend.  Mornings are cool enough to walk and there are evening breezes.  We've been giving the birds lots of water and irrigating the plants from our well.  

Lots of our friends have Covid but none, thankfully, is hospitalized.  Our Durham family spent the last week rafting in the Grand Canyon and comes back tomorrow.  And I've been feeling better about the world-at-large now that New York has outsmarted the Supreme Court by banning concealed weapons from parks and playgrounds, hospitals, schools and churches, subways and Times Square.  New Jersey is set to do the same and we have family there; six are children.  Other states will follow.  Things are looking a little less dire.  I hope you are feeling the same.  There's too much good in the world to allow our negativity bias free reign.  

I've been learning a lot lately and perhaps some of it you might like a reminder of.  

• One thing we're told focus on is listening to our bodies.  My mind can stray to unhelpful thoughts, but my body strains toward what I need.  It is our bodies that recognize when someone loves us and we them, more than our minds.  We love with our bodies.  Our bodies tell us to stretch, or go outdoors, or jump in the water, or give a big hug.  They are pretty much infallible.  

•  Our intuition is the same.  It is always on our side.  It's different for everyone, but I equate my intuition with my mother.  It tells me what she would.  When I have silenced my intuition things have gotten worse; when I sensed a wrong and looked the other way, the wrong grew and became impossible to ignore.  

• Being in flow is a respite we need.  Flow is when space and time are lost.  One place I find it is swimming.  There skills and challenges match and motivation comes from the inside; it is thought-less, meaning without thought.  I count the laps.  There is no extrinsic reward.  I bet something gives a flow state to each of us, more than one thing in fact.  Running is a common one.  Whenever we love what we're doing and it absorbs us.  It used to happen to me on late nights at work, immersed in a legal case.  If you're in a stage of life where personal growth is on your horizon, this may be the time for flow. 

• Any life-goal can be revised and maybe should be.  Example:  If you always wanted to be married (or fill-in-the-blank)  and it isn't working, change the goal to "I always wanted to be content."  Then work on that.  Remember that childhood goals rarely keep up with our grownup selves.  Dreams change.  There's never just one right decision. 
  

• This one is really simple:  add house plants.  They need care, they reward care, they brighten any space, they help the environment, they absorb household toxins, they encourage sleep.  There is not a single negative to adding plants to your space.  What else can we say that about?  They don't even wake us up in the night barking or needing to go out.  They don't claw the furniture. (Even though I love both cats and dogs and have NEVER been without a pet.)

This is enough for today.  As we enjoy July let us support our friends, listen to eachother, love ourselves, live without arrogance or the need for admiration, and let nothing that we cannot change spoil our contentment with the goodness of life.  

                                                              Nina Naomi