I’m indoorsy, nowadays.

Crank the AC and let me be. I don’t even think Los Angeles is breaking heat records compared to other places in the US and around the world. But fighting 100-degree heat, is like fighting a cold. Yes, you can get things done, but you don’t have easy energy. Everything is uphill.

Nothing is effortless. Getting out of a chair. Walking the dog. Sitting in the yard. Even sipping iced tea, if you have to reach for it.

It is all a grudge match.

The meaning of August – aside from 100-degree weather, vacation days, beach trips – is august, or wise. There is a wisdom to this month, perhaps. When I was a young working mother, I didn’t work in December, bec of Christmas preparations and family fun, and I didn’t work in August. Wise. I felt my kids had been untethered so long by August, that they had unique questions and unpredictable needs. The rush and joy of “school’s out” is calmed, and minds roam.

If you’re squandering your August, consider having your fun with a book. (I read a million books as a kid during the summer.) This year, have fun with YOUR BOOK. Come write with us. We still have 38 writing sessions (9 CO-WRITING SESSIONS AVAILABLE EACH WEEK) and a public reading scheduled for just after Labor Day. If you’d like to write with us, visit https://go.decodingcreativity.com/100wdos-august 

For fun, Our writing prompt this morning was,

  • A time you thought you’d die from the heat.

What thoughts come to mind for you?

A time when I thought I would die from the heat, was during the 15-minute Adult Swim at the Montgomery Businessman’s Swim Club where we were members, each summer. Every hour, on the hour, they called out all the kids. Four lifeguards blew their whistles and waved their arms, and there was a mass exodus of kids to the ladders and stairs to get out of the pool. If you were slow, they’d make you stay out an extra 5 minutes. So, we hustled. Frisbees and balls were dropped, rings and rafts, abandoned. Older kids would swim as fast as they could from the deep end, where they held court, to the shallow end, bec if you hurried, you could get a seat on the stairs, there. At least you could stay a little wet for the interminable time when the moms got off their lounge chairs, and waded into the pool, and stood around talking to one another, not wetting their beehive hairdos.

As we baked in the sun, waiting. Blinking. Thinking, “What a waste of good pool time. Why do they get adult swim?” Quiet. Calm. Not fun at all. The moms cupped the water in their hands and wet their necks and shoulders.

Some moms handed their kids a wet dollar, during adult swim, and they could go get a drink or an ice cream bar. Only one lifeguard stayed on duty during adult swim, so the rest of the teenagers were in the snack bar, getting snacks and flirting with each other. It was shady, even dark, inside that shed. It was like watching a staged play of how it might be for us when we went to high school.

We didn’t ever have money on a day we were dropped off at the pool. Our mom didn’t stay. She went home and worked. She didn’t have a beehive. Her friends were not at the pool.

She packed us PB&J sandwiches and a big thermos of Kool-Aid to share and Dixie cups. We liked the riddles. She would leave us in the parking lot usually by mid-morning, in our suits, with towels and suntan lotion. Other kids who were there with their moms had to leave around 3 or 4, so their moms could go make dinner. Not us. My dad would pick us up on his way home from work, just before 6, if we were still there.

We could get a ride home with a neighbor, if we wanted. Sometimes, we’d just walk the 2 miles, in the heat on the side of the road. We didn’t call home, or text. We told our sisters and left.

We had the whole hot day to ourselves. It was ours to squander. Ours to complain about. We could hog a fan, and yell into it to distort our voices. Sit around under a big tree. Or drink iced tea in a big icy mug and read a library book.

August is ours to squander. You don’t have to do a single thing. But if you have a “single thing” on your mind – writing your book, you don’t have to do it alone. Do it with us!