SUMMER SEASONS AND TRAVEL

SUMMER , SEASONS AND TRAVEL

Merton writes to a friend on these topics, responding to questions concerning them, revealing his well documented eccentricity and humanity, as usual.  Wink.  

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Hello there, my friend,

Well, you have given me a lot to think about here...

Glad you are working on the "tree people."  I will look forward to seeing the results.

I am sorry to hear about the long shifts.  Too much is expected of workers... but you know I feel that way from my various writings. I hope you get your holiday soon, and that things are more in balance for you in the future.

Summer is going fine. It has not been terribly hot, thus far.  The various little flower gardens in our yard look good, and the grass is green.  Doggie and I go out for our little walk each day.  It is not very far, really just to where the neighbor's tree shades the sidewalk, whereupon I place my little stool, sit, and wait for doggie to find a spot to go potty in the grass.  (I bring a bag and clean up; don't worry!) So, I am outside, experiencing summer each day for a few minutes for that.  Otherwise, I'm inside, enjoying my new schedule, in the air conditioning.

Art-wise, I am working on four big pieces and will post them along with three other big pieces already done...so as usual with me, it will be a series.  

My students are low, as is the case every summer.  So, there is less stress for me, but less income.  I am enjoying the new schedule I mentioned above, where I teach an hour later than I used to, seven days a week.  It is consistent.  Every day is the same, and this works best for me.  Having that extra hour is so helpful. I'm getting more art and writing done this way and am less stressed.  

So that is how summer is going.

I have made two big decisions this summer, and these will be milestones.

First, I am only going to go to visit family at Christmas and Thanksgivings (and very occasionally when hubby and I have our little "week off" vacations" several times a year, if we feel up to it).  Otherwise, I am not going to go to the various gatherings and events my family has planned.  I love my family very much, but it just stresses me out to much, veers me off my schedule, and takes me days or weeks to recover.

The other decision of the summer is that I am going to stop performing live.  I have performed live music for the elderly (singing, playing various instruments) for about fifteen years, and have done about ten thousand performances (literally).  So, I think that is enough.  My truck is wearing out and I will not get another (I do not want, and cannot afford a monthly payment) So, I think it is best to preserve the truck and my energy.  It stresses me to go out and perform.  Even though I enjoy it (and even though it is only once a month, now) I think this is the best decision.  

So these are the big events and decisions of the summer.   Hopefully my family will understand concerning my absences at family gatherings and just enjoy seeing me at Thanksgiving and Christmas.  I hope God will not be upset with me for ceasing to visit family and halting the performing of music for elders.  I assume God understands that the family visits stress me, and feels that the ten thousand some performances I did do are enough "stars in my crown."  

Once again, even though I do not intellectually see God as sentient and judging, emotionally (and in such situations as this) one sees how tradtional I am in my view of God, worrying over how "He" "feels" about my decisions.  Lol.  Silly Merton!

You asked about my feelings, likes and desires concerning travel.  Well, hubby and I do not really travel much.  When I was little, my parents took me all over the east coast on historical vacations.  I have been there, to Hannibal to see the Mark Twain things (since my dad is a Mark Twain scholar), to Florida and to Greece.  But other than that, I have been a "mental traveler" as Isak Dinesan says, with lots of reading and watching (as my recent lists detail).  

There has been, of course, my travel with my performing of music for the elderly (which was local). But still, it was traveling about, throughout the city, little towns and countryside.  It was good, and an important part of my life.  I enjoyed it, and I think I did some good in the world.

Hubby and I did go to Vermont for our civil union, a decade a go.  We enjoyed that.  I have memories of visiting the "oldest yarn shop on the east coast,"  the little restaurant where we ate daily (and the waitress asked, testily, "Will that be all for you boys?!?" when we asked for our pop and water filled many times, which is customary in our neck of the woods, but evidently not in Vermont... lol!).

I remember the little scary plane we traveled to Vermont on, our little day trip up into Canada, the little B and B we stayed in, and the gay inn keeper's sweet elderly mother (whom he scolded a bit for being intrusive, he thought, but whom we enjoyed).  There were all sorts of memories like that from our Vermont trip.  

I do think, in general, that traveling enriches us, and helps us to see that it is a big world out there, where people and things are different, yet the same.  Our vision of ourselves, the world, life, etc., is broadened, changed and enhanced, when we travel (physically or mentally, or even, these days, via media, the net, television, movies, etc.)  Travel, mental or physical, is a good thing.

My grandmother and aunts and uncles all love Vegas.  My dad thinks it is highly immoral (and so did my birth mom... the one recording of her voice is a tirade about it... lol) I always remember  that in Steven King's The Stand (an apocalyptic mini-series from the eighties that I really enjoyed) all the "bad people" who are still left on earth go and ensconce themselves in Vegas, along with a Satan figure... lol.  It is there that an epic battle for the soul of America and humanity takes place!  Wink.

I have never been to Vegas, but I hear it is fun, with lots to see and do.  Sorry that your ex had a little problem with gambling... I think that is what my mom and dad object to.  I am neUtral. I think I would like the imitations of European sites and the buffets!  Wink.

I would like to travel, but I think my traveling days are over, since anything which veers me off my little schedule stresses me.  I am such a little old man!    Guess I wore myself out in my previous busy life.  I think this runs in my family. There is my eccentric, reclusive aunt, now deceased, my uncle who hung himself in the basement as a young man, my lovely grammie who seldom leaves home, and my grandpa who went home to live with his mom at fifty (and died there shortly thereafter).  

There is a Blanch Dubois vein in our family, and I think I have that... but at least I see hubby, doggie and students each day and had a busy life as a young man (enough for several lifetimes, I think, when I was younger).

Who knows?  Maybe hubby and I will win the lottery and travel someday, but I think probably not.

As for you final questions:

I do not think the light particularly affects me, because I only leave the house when I take doggie out the front door throughout the day, and on Friday and Saturday evenings for dinner out with hubby.  Other than that (and a once a month errand/appointment trip) I do not leave the house.

I do not think I am really different in the summer, because, as I said, in any season, I do not leave the house much at all and follow the same schedule, seven days a week.  Nap and students same time every day... Dinner out on Friday and Saturday after students, and a Sunday dinner that hubby makes after students is the only difference.  I do not really notice the seasonal changes, except that dealing with the driveway and walk (keeping it clear for students) is a big pain in winter.

My favorite season used to be fall.  I loved the colors and the cool, crisp air.  Now, I am not certain.  I do enjoy seeing the flower gardens when I take doggie out to potty, and hubby and I once in a while take a little walk around the yard.  So I do like spring and summer, in that regard.  

Well, I did my best to respond, and hope I gave satisfactory answers.  I hope you get your holiday/break from long hours at work, and I cannot wait to see your new artistic endeavors.

Take care and enjoy your summer!

Merton