Lately, I feel like  Rapunzel, no gold hair, no tower.

It’s summer.  I have always loved  summer.  I have a tropical background and on hot steamy humid days, I thrived, bloomed and glowed.  I’d wake early on weekends and days off and drive down to the beach in the early morning.  I’d walk on the wet sand, breathe in the  air, feel the salt on my skin.  Sit a bit in the warm sun, reading and dozing.  I would be off by 11 or so.  Only mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun.  After 4, I’d drive down to the beach and  walk the boardwalk.  Friday nights were the best – all the international families strolling, smell of suntan lotion mingling with the sea and other perfume. Evenings in the backyard with the scent of flowers mixing with the citronella torches and bug spray.

I used to be teased that I always managed to be unemployed in summer.  I would spend so much time outside that my dark brown hair would bleach.

Fast forward to now.  I am not working again.  While I was still working this summer, I was considered very glamorous as I would leave the office with a broad Italian straw hat and Audrey Hepburn-like glasses.  Yes, I like dressing like that but I also had to because of the way the sun impacts me.

Now I am confined to the house.  I cannot get into or out of the backyard without help.  It has a few steps.  I found this out the hard way a few years ago.  I was gardening and found that I was like the little mermaid.  My legs were useless.  I have been able to do it since with assistance and a cane.  We have a gazebo/screen house in the back and I have loved sitting there reading, working, studying.  So far this year, I can’t manage the steps or the bumpy grass.  I look out the back window.  I feel like the Lady of Shalot without the mirror.

There’s a butterfly bush outside the kitchen window and I watch the butterflies flitter on and off.

We plant pots of flowers against the house.  This Saturday was the first time I was able to walk up to the pots and see them after planting them in June.  If I say so myself, they are spectacular.

The other day, there was no humidity and low 80’s.  T was outside and I sat reading on our front stoop under an awning.  Maybe 30 minutes.  I was able to stand but struggled to get up the two steps.  Then I have to step into the house.  Not happening.  I tell T I need an ice pack.  He screams at me that it is only 4 inches.  It could be Mt. Everest.  The ice works.

The plan is, if the weather holds, between T and his son, I may be able to get in the back.  I weigh less now than what the “kid” used to dead lift.  That’s a positive.

Just blue as I can’t really leave the house and do anything.   Taking the mail in from the end of the drive is sometimes insurmountable.

The sky is that rich August blue.  I am inside, looking out.

I am finding it hard to be my joyous self.   I am mourning my body.