A Bubble Off Plumb

Does anyone else feel like they are playing catch up? It seems like the weeks are rolling past faster than ever and it is all we can do to keep our head above water, much less get ahead a little.

It isn’t just one thing, it’s everything. The house is dirty, the closets are a mess, the garden needs weeded or watered and I forgot to mail anniversary cards to the kids. All year.

Maybe it’s because this enterprise didn’t shut down, so there wasn’t all that time at home to clean the house, the closets, the refrigerator. I’m pretty sure there is a bottle of pickles from 1973 on the top shelf.

But the parents of athletes must feel like they are behind, too. Sports have just opened up and there are camps and practices and drills. The taxi service is running non-stop.

There is added pressure, too, because of predictions the corona virus could make a boomerang appearance just in time for the holidays. Everyone can easily remember what happened this time and are busy shopping for or ordering in all the things they couldn’t get last time.

All these factors are trying to do what time can do on its own – steal the summer. It goes fast enough as it is and ends all too soon, at least for my household. There aren’t enough days to spend outside, or camping, swimming, fishing, visiting.

With the shadow of the virus lingering in every corner and the fear of its return darkening the calendar, it would be an easy thing to lose sight of this once in a lifetime summer, where for some of us our students are home for that last time before they go out into the world, until grandchildren are in grade school, busy with their own little doings and sports, plays and such.

It would be simple to get out of sorts with dirt and busyness and work.

Don’t. Do. It.

Grab on to this blast furnace season, live it in high gear, squeeze every drop of goodness out of it. Take back what the virus threatened to take away. Because when the calendar closes on this summer, this year, all we have to take with us from it are the memories we make.

Connie Burcham can be reached at Editor@WatongaRepublican.com