Aaaaah!
That's me, sighing because I just finished recording the grades for my five-week courses. Suddenly the summer unfolds in front of me like a morning glory just after dawn.
The summer weeks were crazy with teaching and grading and preparing for classes. I hunched in front of my computer, my legs falling asleep because my feet don't reach the floor, as I prepared for teaching the three-hour class twice a week and the two-hour class three times a week. I struggled to stay on top of the grading, throwing an occasional bone to my online class which runs all summer. But now, I'm done!
I'm looking forward to seeing the sun on my run tomorrow morning rather than running in the pre-dawn dark.
I plan to take my computer to a cozy coffee shop and bang out a few thousand words on my next novel, which, as you can tell if you look at the word count, is almost at 30,000. I don't have a spiffy blurb for this essay yet, but suffice it to say, Fia, a Midwestern mother and wife, loses her job at the local newspaper, but is convinced something wonderful will land in her lap to help pay all those bills that are stacking up. Enter her great uncle Martin who married a French woman after World War II and runs a bed and breakfast near Aix en Provence. He calls and asks Fia and her family to take over running the bed and breakfast. Fia agrees to try it for the summer in hopes it will bond the family together at a time when her 14-year-old twins are beginning to pull away. The adventure in France isn't nearly the family builder she had hoped, and Fia begins to wonder what secret her uncle was hiding as the phone is tapped and people ransack the bed and breakfast searching for something...
So, I'm happy that I can spend the dog days of August writing and reading good books, but I regret the things I missed this year. As I sat on the front porch, I could hear the sounds from the municipal pool down the hill. I spotted the last hollyhock bloom of the summer, well, at least my hollyhock bloom. It waved slowly in the breeze, a pale pink circle on the tiptop of the stem. Maybe next year, I'll take the time to admire the hollyhocks all summer long and remember that working and running in moderation make a more fulfilling life.
2 comments:
Yet another idea for a great book. Have you been to Aix. You need to come and I'll show you around.
Linda, Yes, we've been, but I'd love to see it from an insider's view. Mostly we just end up sitting and eating and listening to the street musicians.
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